🔗 Share this article

You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. At that moment readying for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The musician, actual name J. Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The album, her latest release, was meant as an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while dealing with her cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.

She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.

We’re at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and big frames. Imagine motorcycle style meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Jessie is sharp-witted, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the audience.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.

“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy recently and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”

The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”

Previous Struggles

Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to highlight not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”

She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career starring in the stage in the production (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the medical problem WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio the group while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”

Oi, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees