You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The musician, real name J. Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly coping with the disease. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is sharp-witted, bold and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show next year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as 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, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. During crises you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is no stranger to illness. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already starting her career performing in the stage in the production (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and teenage Jess has entered the girl group the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
