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You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J remarks. There she was readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Then in spring she was told she had breast cancer.

The musician, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The record, her latest release, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.

She offers me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting 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 cosmetic procedures.

Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and oversized specs. Think motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the fans.”

Personal Battles and News

She was preparing for an performance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an test, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.

“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have indicated malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”

Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am

She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”

Past Medical Issues

The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”

She takes me back to her childhood, already making her debut starring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”

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