‘It has taught me to embrace life more’: Jessica Cornish on cancer, comebacks and cracking China

You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Then in spring she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.

The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly dealing with the disease. Subsequently she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.

She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.

Our interview takes place at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. She is sharp-witted, irreverent and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the audience.”

Medical Challenges and Discovery

Cornish was preparing for an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had many commitments.

“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after years away and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just strolled down with a gown on and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”

The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”

Previous Struggles

She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”

She reminisces to her childhood, already making her debut performing in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group Soul Deep while studying at 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 car crash and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”

Wow, I say, slow down, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees