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You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.

The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an open book, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with typical candour. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was talking to press about how she was thriving, while all the while living with the disease. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.

She gives me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.

We meet at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Jessie is sharp-witted, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show soon. “I like entertaining. When performing I often tease the audience.”

Medical Challenges and Discovery

The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had many commitments.

“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal recently and my one side now resembles a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”

The next operation is for health and appearance. Her chest, she observes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”

A History of Health Challenges

Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”

She reminisces to her childhood, already starting her career starring in the stage in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has become part of the female band the group 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 voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a year.”

Oi, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees