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You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.

The artist, birth name Jess Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The record, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an transparent story, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later second single, the upbeat 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 dealing with breast cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.

She gives me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.

We meet at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and oversized specs. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I frequently joke about the crowd.”

Medical Challenges and Discovery

Cornish was preparing for an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had a busy schedule.

“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but this time I just walked with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my affected breast now resembles a odd shape.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”

Previous Struggles

Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s experienced in health crises. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with high points for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”

She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the heart condition WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the trio Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”

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