You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, real name J. Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time coping with breast cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I often tease the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but then I just marched with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my one side now appears as a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her chest, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is familiar with health problems. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the West End in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and teenage Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
