You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. There she was preparing for her comeback record in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name J. Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while at the same time living with the disease. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with ornate white designs, cream boots and large glasses. Think rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was preparing for an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “It’s terrible, but however Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal recently and my one side now appears as a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to physical challenges. Frequently they align with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the heart condition WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and young Jessica has entered the trio the group while studying at the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Oi, I say, wait, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
