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You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Then in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.

The singer-songwriter, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was talking to press about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.

She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.

We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and big frames. Imagine biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut soon. “I enjoy humor. When performing I often tease the crowd.”

Medical Challenges and Discovery

Cornish was preparing for an slot at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had a busy schedule.

“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a gown on and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”

Previous Struggles

The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s used to physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”

She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut starring in the stage in the production (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”

Wow, I say, hold on, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees