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You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. There she was preparing for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Then in March she was told she had breast cancer.

The singer-songwriter, real name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an candid account, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, 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. The cancer. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with her cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.

She offers me her best “Seriously?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.

We’re at a studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the crowd.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

The artist was getting ready for an slot at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an test, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.

“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They lead you. During crises you are wheeled, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my one side now looks like a odd shape.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”

The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”

Past Medical Issues

The singer is familiar with health problems. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”

She reminisces to her childhood, already making her debut featuring in the West End in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward six years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”

Wow, I say, wait, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees