You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released 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 the artist was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly coping with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut soon. “I love making people laugh. During performances I frequently joke about the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. During crises you are wheeled, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my one side now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s used to physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career starring in the London theater in the production (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and teenage Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
