You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an candid account, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The initial release, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with the disease. Subsequently she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Picture motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Jessie is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was planning an appearance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just walked with a gown on and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but however Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened four months ago and my affected breast now looks like a odd shape.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. They have often coincided with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
