You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. At that moment preparing for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The artist, real name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an candid account, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while all the while living with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and oversized specs. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Cornish is sharp-witted, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance soon. “I enjoy humor. When performing I often tease the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an scan, 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 pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but then I just walked 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 surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened recently and my affected breast now resembles a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or shock, to highlight not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her childhood, already starting her career performing in the London theater in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
