You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, her latest release, was meant as an transparent story, addressing every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time dealing with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, cream boots and large glasses. Imagine rocker vibe meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is quick, bold and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her first comedy performance next year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I basically roast the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
She was getting ready for an slot at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to health crises. Frequently they align with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already making her debut starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital 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 the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
