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You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.

The musician, actual name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then second single, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.

She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.

We meet at a studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and large glasses. Think rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, referencing the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. She is quick, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I basically roast the fans.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

Cornish was getting ready for an slot at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.

“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but then I just walked with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened recently and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”

The next operation is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”

Past Medical Issues

The singer is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. Frequently they align with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”

She reminisces to her youth, already starting her career performing in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”

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