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You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. There she was preparing for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Then in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.

The artist, real name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The record, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later second single, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in early July she received surgical treatment.

She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.

We’re at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance soon. “I enjoy humor. During performances I frequently joke about the crowd.”

Medical Challenges and Discovery

Cornish was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an scan, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.

“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but then I just walked with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but however Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened a few months back and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”

The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”

A History of Health Challenges

She is no stranger to illness. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Frequently they align with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”

She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward six years, and young Jessica has become part of the trio Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”

Wow, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees