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You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.

The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The first single, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with the disease. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.

She offers me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.

We’re at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and oversized specs. Picture motorcycle style 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 picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Jessie is sharp-witted, unfiltered and blunt. 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 frequently joke about the crowd.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

Cornish was preparing for an slot at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had many commitments.

“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have indicated malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but now I just walked with a gown on and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my one side now appears as a odd shape.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! 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.”

Past Medical Issues

She is no stranger to illness. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s used to physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has often paired with achievements for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”

She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already beginning starring in the West End in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the female band the group while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”

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