You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Then in March she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The musician, actual name J. Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Jessie is quick, irreverent and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was planning an appearance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an scan, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense 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 Friday. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but this time I just strolled down with a gown on and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened four months ago and my right breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she notes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? 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 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the West End in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
