You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. There she was preparing for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The artist, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with her cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and oversized specs. Picture rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut soon. “I enjoy humor. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was preparing for an slot at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after a long hiatus and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have shown aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but this time I just marched with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
She is familiar with health problems. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements 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 a musical (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
