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You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.

The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while at the same time living with her cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.

She shoots me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.

We’re at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Picture rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Cornish is quick, irreverent and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”

Personal Battles and News

The artist was preparing for an appearance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.

“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. 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 viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but this time I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”

The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”

Past Medical Issues

The singer is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with health crises. Frequently they align with career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”

She recalls to her childhood, already starting her career performing in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”

Hey, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees