You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name J. Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, addressing every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later next release, Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly dealing with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Picture motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. She is quick, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I often tease the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was planning an slot at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after years away and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but then I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “It’s terrible, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal recently and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
She is familiar with health problems. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with high points for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her youth, already beginning featuring in the West End in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward several years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
