🔗 Share this article

You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.

The musician, birth name J. Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with her cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.

She shoots me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.

We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and large glasses. Picture biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Cornish is sharp-witted, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut soon. “I love making people laugh. On stage I basically roast the audience.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

The artist was getting ready for an slot at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.

“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after eight years without an album and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have indicated malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They lead you. During crises you roll down in a bed, but this time I just walked with a gown on and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened a few months back and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The next operation is for health and appearance. Her chest, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”

A History of Health Challenges

Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”

She reminisces to her youth, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”

Oi, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees