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You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.

The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, addressing every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then next release, Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with breast cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.

She offers me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.

We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is quick, bold and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I basically roast the crowd.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.

“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful 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 considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but this time I just strolled down with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my one side now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”

Past Medical Issues

Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Frequently they align with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to remind her not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”

She takes me back to her youth, already beginning featuring in the West End in the production (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and teenage Jess has entered the girl group the group while studying at the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a year.”

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