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You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. There she was readying for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.

The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.

She shoots me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.

We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and big frames. Picture motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, referencing the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I often tease the crowd.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

She was getting ready for an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.

“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after a long hiatus and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “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 marched with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal recently and my right breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The next operation is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”

Past Medical Issues

Cornish is no stranger to illness. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. Frequently they align with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ 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 stage in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”

Oi, I say, wait, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees