You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. There she was gearing up for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The musician, actual name J. Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The LP, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with breast cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her initial standup show soon. “I enjoy humor. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after eight years without an album and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have indicated malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but this time I just walked with a gown on and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened four months ago and my right breast now appears as a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is familiar with health problems. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her childhood, already starting her career starring in the London theater 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 rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and teenage Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a year.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
