You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Then in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The artist, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with her cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. She is quick, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was planning an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an test, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. During crises you go on a gurney, but this time I just walked with a medical attire and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened recently and my affected breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is familiar with health problems. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already starting her career starring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and teenage Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
