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You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.

The singer-songwriter, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.

She offers me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.

Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and large glasses. Think motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Cornish is quick, bold and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her standup debut soon. “I love making people laugh. On stage I frequently joke about the audience.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

Cornish was getting ready for an slot at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.

“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after a long hiatus and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened a few months back and my one side now resembles a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”

A History of Health Challenges

The singer is familiar with health problems. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”

She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and young Jessica has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”

Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees