You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. There she was preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The musician, birth name J. Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The album, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with breast cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and big frames. Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Jessie is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an slot at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after a long hiatus and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a medical attire and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is no stranger to illness. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s experienced in health crises. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in the production (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 tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward several years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
