You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Then in March she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The first single, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while at the same time coping with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an test, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘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 concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal four months ago and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her chest, she remarks, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already beginning featuring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
