You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. There she was preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Then in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The musician, birth name J. Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The album, 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 worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly dealing with the disease. A month later she went public, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with ornate white designs, cream boots and large glasses. Think rocker vibe meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Cornish is quick, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her standup debut next year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I often tease the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They lead you. During crises you go on a gurney, but this time I just walked with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal four months ago and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. 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.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to remind her not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning starring in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
