You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. There she was gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The musician, real name J. Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an transparent story, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then next release, Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while coping with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Jessie is sharp-witted, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut soon. “I love making people laugh. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘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, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have shown malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but this time I just marched with a medical attire and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened a few months back and my affected breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is familiar with health problems. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. Frequently they align with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with 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 drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and young Jessica has become part of the trio Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Oi, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
