You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Then in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with the disease. A month later she shared the news, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and blunt. 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. On stage I often tease the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be positive, 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 high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. 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 scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened a few months back and my affected breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ 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 recalls to her youth, already starting her career featuring in the stage in a musical (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 tachycardia as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
