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You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. There she was readying for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Then in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.

The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.

She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.

Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. She is quick, bold and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I frequently joke about the audience.”

Personal Battles and News

She was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.

“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after years away and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They lead you. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened recently and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”

The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she notes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”

Past Medical Issues

Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”

She takes me back to her youth, already beginning featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”

Oi, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees