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You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment readying for her comeback record in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Then in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The first single, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then second single, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.

She offers me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.

Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and oversized specs. Picture motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the picture. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Jessie is quick, bold and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show next year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I basically roast the audience.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

The artist was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had so much on.

“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after a long hiatus and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but this time I just walked with a hospital gown and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my affected breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”

The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”

Past Medical Issues

Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”

She recalls to her childhood, already starting her career starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward several years, and young Jessica has joined the trio the group while attending the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”

Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees