You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. There she was readying for her comeback record in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Then in March she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, real name J. Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an open book, tackling every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then second single, her song 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 still secretly living with her cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is sharp-witted, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her first comedy performance soon. “I enjoy humor. When performing I often tease the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
She was planning an slot at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now appears as a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! 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.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut performing in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and teenage Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
