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You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. There she was gearing up for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.

The singer-songwriter, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The LP, her latest release, was supposed to be an open book, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while at the same time dealing with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she received surgical treatment.

She shoots me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.

We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and oversized specs. Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I often tease the audience.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

The artist was planning an slot at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; 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 rise.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.

“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. 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. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but now I just walked with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened a few months back and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”

The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”

A History of Health Challenges

Cornish is no stranger to illness. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s used to physical challenges. They have often coincided with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to remind her not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”

She reminisces to her youth, already starting her career starring in the West End in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and teenage Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”

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