You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. There she was preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, real name J. Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an transparent story, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time coping with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. She is quick, 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 like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
She was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an test, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to medical emergencies. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and young Jessica has joined the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
