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You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.

The artist, real name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while at the same time living with breast cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.

She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.

We’re at a studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and large glasses. Picture motorcycle style meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Jessie is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I often tease the fans.”

Medical Challenges and Discovery

The artist was getting ready for an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went 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. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following 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 Cornish had convinced herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.

“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”

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

She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They lead you. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened a few months back and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”

The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”

Past Medical Issues

Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”

She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already beginning starring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the medical problem WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and young Jessica has joined the female band Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”

Oi, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees