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You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J remarks. There she was readying for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The musician, birth name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.

She gives me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.

We’re at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and large glasses. Think motorcycle style meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is quick, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I frequently joke about the fans.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

The artist was getting ready for an slot at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.

“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. During crises you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a medical attire and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened four months ago and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I reflected, 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 obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”

Past Medical Issues

Cornish is no stranger to illness. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to highlight not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”

She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has joined the female band Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”

Oi, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees