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You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. There she was gearing up for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for a decade, on top of the world. Then in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.

The musician, actual name J. Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an candid account, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while at the same time living with her cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in early July she received surgical treatment.

She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.

We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and oversized specs. Imagine motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut soon. “I enjoy humor. During performances I frequently joke about the crowd.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

Cornish was planning an appearance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.

“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

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

She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a medical attire 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 sucks, man, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal recently and my right breast now appears as a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”

The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “different sizes. 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 difficult experience. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”

A History of Health Challenges

Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”

She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning starring in the London theater in the production (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”

Wow, I say, hold on, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees