You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J remarks. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name J. Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with the disease. A month later she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots 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 answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the seventies 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. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was planning an slot at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an test, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. During crises you go on a gurney, but then I just strolled down with a gown on and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my one side now appears as a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already making her debut performing in the stage in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and young Jessica has become part of the trio the group while attending the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in recently 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 am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
