You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. There she was readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Then in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The musician, birth name J. Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The LP, her latest release, was supposed to be an open book, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Imagine motorcycle style meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I basically roast the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after years away and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened recently and my right breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in health crises. Frequently they align with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already making her debut starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
