You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. At that moment readying for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Then in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, actual name J. Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The LP, her latest release, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time dealing with breast cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the film. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Jessie is fast-thinking, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I often tease the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was planning an appearance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have come back as malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They lead you. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a gown on and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut performing in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the female band the group while attending the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
