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You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Then in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The musician, actual name Jess Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly dealing with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in early July she received surgical treatment.

She gives me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.

Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is quick, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”

Personal Battles and News

Cornish was planning an appearance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient 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 contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ 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 says, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “It’s terrible, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened recently and my one side now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”

A History of Health Challenges

She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”

She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut performing in the stage in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”

Oi, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees