You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment preparing for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name J. Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an open book, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while still secretly coping with breast cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Picture motorcycle style meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show soon. “I enjoy humor. During performances I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have indicated malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but then I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal recently and my affected breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! 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 flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her youth, already making her debut performing in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
