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You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. There she was preparing for her first album release 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 ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was found to have breast cancer.

The singer-songwriter, actual name J. Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an candid account, addressing every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time living with the disease. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.

She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.

We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and big frames. Picture motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the audience.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

The artist was preparing for an slot at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had many commitments.

“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal recently and my affected breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. 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 hard period. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”

Previous Struggles

The singer is no stranger to illness. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. They have often coincided with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”

She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group the group while attending the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”

Hey, I say, hold on, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees