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You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.

The singer-songwriter, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an candid account, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, losing a baby, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with breast cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in early July she received surgical treatment.

She gives me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.

We’re at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the film. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Jessie is quick, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I love making people laugh. On stage I often tease the fans.”

Personal Battles and News

She was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.

“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me 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 positive, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”

Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am

She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal four months ago and my one side now appears as a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, 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 perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”

A History of Health Challenges

The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, 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 always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”

She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the West End in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”

Oi, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees