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You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.

The singer-songwriter, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, failed relationships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with her cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in July she had a mastectomy.

She offers me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.

We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and large glasses. Picture rocker vibe 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, thinking of the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Jessie is sharp-witted, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her standup debut in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I frequently joke about the audience.”

Medical Challenges and Discovery

The artist was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I immediately went 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 responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.

“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt 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 dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but then I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened four months ago and my affected breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The next operation is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”

Previous Struggles

The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”

She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (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 vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”

Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees