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You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J remarks. There she was preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was told she had cancer in her breast.

The singer-songwriter, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then second single, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.

She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.

We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and big frames. Imagine biker chic meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Jessie is quick, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her first comedy performance soon. “I love making people laugh. When performing I often tease the crowd.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

She was planning an slot at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.

“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They lead you. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a hospital gown and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”

Past Medical Issues

The singer is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. Frequently they align with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”

She reminisces to her childhood, already making her debut featuring in the West End in the production (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”

Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees