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You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Then in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.

The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The record, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while still secretly coping with breast cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.

She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.

We meet at a studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the film. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Jessie is quick, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I basically roast the fans.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

The artist was preparing for an appearance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.

“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after years away and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but then I just walked with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my one side now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”

Previous Struggles

The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in health crises. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”

She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already beginning starring in the stage in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and young Jessica has joined the girl group the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. 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.”

Wow, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees