You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. There she was preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly dealing with the disease. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and large glasses. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. She is quick, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I basically roast the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but this time I just marched 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 blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my one side now appears as a odd shape.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her chest, she remarks, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in health crises. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already starting her career performing in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat 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 teenage Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
