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You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Then in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.

The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The record, her latest release, was meant as an candid account, addressing every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with the disease. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.

She gives me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.

We meet at a studio in London. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Jessie is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show next year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I often tease the crowd.”

Medical Challenges and Discovery

She was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.

“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. During crises you roll down in a bed, but now I just walked with a hospital gown and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal recently and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”

The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. 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 ideal. Illness changed that.”

Previous Struggles

Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”

She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already beginning featuring in the stage in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and young Jessica has joined the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a year.”

Hey, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees