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You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. There she was gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.

The artist, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, addressing every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with breast cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.

She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.

Our interview takes place at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, cream boots and oversized specs. Imagine motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the picture. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her standup debut soon. “I love making people laugh. During performances I often tease the crowd.”

Medical Challenges and Discovery

Cornish was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had a busy schedule.

“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just walked with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”

The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”

Previous Struggles

The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to medical emergencies. They have often coincided with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”

She reminisces to her youth, already beginning performing in the West End in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and young Jessica has entered the female band Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a year.”

Wow, I say, slow down, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees