You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, on top of the world. Then in spring she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The album, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an open book, tackling every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time living with her cancer. A month later she went public, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and large glasses. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is quick, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘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?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but this time I just marched with a gown on and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
She is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has often paired with achievements for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already beginning featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
