‘It has made me live life more’: Jessie J on her health battle, comebacks and cracking China

You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. There she was readying for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was found to have breast cancer.

The artist, actual name J. Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The album, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an transparent story, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was talking to press about how she was thriving, while at the same time living with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in July she received surgical treatment.

She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.

We’re at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the movie. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Cornish is sharp-witted, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the audience.”

Personal Battles and News

The artist was planning an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.

“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. During crises you are wheeled, but this time I just walked with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now resembles a odd shape.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I thought, 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 OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”

A History of Health Challenges

Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”

She recalls to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the West End in the production (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and young Jessica has become part of the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”

Wow, I say, wait, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees