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You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.

The singer-songwriter, actual name Jess Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while at the same time coping with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.

She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.

We meet at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Cornish is sharp-witted, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

The artist was preparing for an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.

“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have come back as malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They lead you. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”

Past Medical Issues

Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”

She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut starring in the West End in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”

Wow, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees