“You couldn’t make it up,” says Jessie J. She was preparing for her first album release in eight years, overjoyed in her new relationship, and finally a mother to a toddler after a decade-long struggle to conceive—she was on top of the world. Then, in March, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, whose real name is Jessica Cornish, is known for her honesty. Her album, “Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time,” was meant to be an open book, addressing all the hardships she’d faced since her last record—endometriosis, miscarriage, failed relationships, gaslighting, and suicidal thoughts—with her typical frankness. The first single, “No Secrets,” came out in April, but by then she was hiding a huge secret: the cancer. When the second single, “Living My Best Life,” was released in May, Cornish was giving interviews about living her best life, all while secretly battling breast cancer. She went public a month later and had a mastectomy in early July.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I release a song called ‘No Secrets,’ and I’m doing interviews where they ask, ‘So what’s new?’ and I’m like, ‘Uh, nothing…'” Cornish has had to cancel tour dates as she awaits reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She’s wearing a beige faux-leather jacket, blue jeans with intricate white patches, cream boots, and oversized glasses—a mix of biker chic and 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the ’70s and should have a boyfriend with a big mustache,” she says. I mention Easy Rider, and she grins, “That’s what people called me in school!” Cornish is sharp, irreverent, and unfiltered. She’s always wanted to try comedy and hopes to debut her standup next year. “I love making people laugh; on stage, I basically roast the audience.”
Cornish found a lump while preparing for the Baftas. “I got it checked right away, had an ultrasound, and they said it looked like nothing, that I had dense breast tissue. But I could feel it, and I had an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands when I woke up. So they did a biopsy on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday, and the doctor said she’d call on Monday if it was bad news. By then, Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing—cancer was just too inconvenient with everything else going on.
“We were two weeks from launching this album after eight years without one and four without a single. The doctor texted, ‘Are you free at six?’ I thought, ‘It’s a Zoom, it’ll be fine.’ I hopped on, expecting good news, and she said, ‘Are you sitting down?’ in that sad tone. Then, ‘I’m so sorry, but your test results show high-grade cancer cells.'” How did she react? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it? Terrible timing.’ My first thought was, ‘I can’t die; my son needs me.'”
She found the surgery both scary and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down—this time, I strolled in a gown with my bum out, feeling like I was in a Black Mirror episode.” But she considers herself lucky: no chemo or radiotherapy, just the operation. “Cancer sucks, m—””And you know what? Thank God I found it early. I had the mastectomy four months ago, and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She grins again. “At least I got to keep the nipple.” The next surgery will address both medical and cosmetic needs. She points out that her breasts are now different sizes. “They didn’t have an implant as small as my original breast. How rude! I thought, no need to bully me—I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I always said I’d never get my boobs done since I have OCD, and I knew they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She believes her positive outlook on cancer comes from being familiar with health crises. These often coincided with career successes, serving as a reality check to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel like life says, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, whenever I had moments of success, something serious or strange would happen to my health.”
She recalls being 11 years old and making her West End debut in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at age nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, a heart condition that can cause a rapid heartbeat, dizziness, and palpitations. “I was going to rehearsals with an IV drip and returning to the hospital at night.” Fast-forward six years, and 17-year-old Jess had joined the girl group Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and then I had a stroke. Then, when I was about to release music in 2020, I was in a car crash that displaced my larynx, and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
I interrupt, “Wait, slow down—I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17?” She nods. “I was on a train, and my face drooped. I felt terrible and went to my GP, who said, ‘I think you’ve had a minor stroke; I’m calling an ambulance.’ I was in the hospital for four to five weeks.” She smiles. “Clearly, I have an addiction to being diagnosed with things. So maybe the cancer is part of that.”
Did illness define her childhood? Not at all, she says. “My mum and dad always did a great job of not letting that be the defining thing in my life and not letting me define myself by my worst days. That was amazing and has stayed with me until now.” Ultimately, she believes her health issues have shaped her positively. “They’ve made me live life more fully, eat better, exercise more, and appreciate the moment.”
I notice a tattoo of an open circle on her left wrist and ask what it represents. “My mum, dad, and I got this on my dad’s 60th birthday in New York. It’s a circle of love, and my sisters were too scared to get it. So now I’m their favorite child!” She clearly adores her family. Cornish, now 37, grew up in Essex with two older sisters who were more academic than her and both served as head girls in secondary school. Their mother was a nursery school teacher, and their father was a mental health social worker.
At 16, she started at the Brit School, where she was in the same year as Adele (they even sang together during lunch breaks). In the past, she described the Brit School as cutthroat. What did she think students wanted more—to be good or to be famous? “I think people just wanted to be the center of attention. We were all teenagers trying to be the loudest. Everything I wore was green, I drew music notes on my face, and I was a hair model for Vidal Sassoon. So I literally looked like I was going to Star Trek school dressed as a duck.”
Did she like the Brit School? “II absolutely loved it. You know what I cherished the most? It taught me to be streetwise, as I had to take five trains daily from Essex to Croydon. Waking up at the crack of dawn instilled discipline in me. But I adored it all—I loved learning, the daily variety, not having to wear a uniform, and the auditions. I auditioned for everything, which is how I ended up in the girl band that landed me my first record deal.
“I love the success, but I don’t love being famous.” (Dress and shoes: Lanvin. Bangles: Dinosaur Designs)
Cornish first tasted success at 21 as part of the team that wrote “Party in the USA” for Miley Cyrus in 2009. A year later, she scored her first hit with “Do It Like a Dude.” The song was a three-minute burst of self-referencing promotion, female empowerment, male parody, and playful double entendres—a pop anthem with a bold edge. This also marked her debut as Jessie J.
When asked whether she prefers Jessica, Jessie, or Jess, she immediately says, “Jess.” She explains, “I hate Jessie. It sounds like a dog’s name—’Jessie, come back here!'” She even whistles as if calling a dog. “The ‘J’ makes it nicer; it completely changes the vibe.”
After “Do It Like a Dude” came “Price Tag,” her first number one and still her most famous song. It’s catchy bubble-gum pop that champions happiness over money, but Cornish notes it also critiques the music industry she had just entered. “It was about being treated as just a statistic or a number at a record label, where talent and truth didn’t matter,” she says, singing a line to emphasize her point: “‘When the sale comes first and the truth comes second, just stop for a minute and smile.’ I was already tired of contracts and frustrated that the focus was on how much money they could make from me, not on what I had to say.”
She had more hits like “Domino” (another UK number one), “Who You Are” (a self-empowerment anthem and one of her favorites), and 2014’s “Bang Bang” with Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj (another celebration of female strength and her biggest US hit). After “Bang Bang,” she had one more Top 20 single, and then her chart success faded. For ten years, she hasn’t had a hit record, going from a pop sensation to a has-been almost overnight.
How did that affect her? “You know what? I’m actually lucky because I never cared about number ones or that kind of stuff. Ever. It’s just not who I am, and that’s probably why I’ve had so many managers—many of them are fixated on that.”
In a way, she found failure relieving because it allowed her to regain some anonymity. “I love the success, but I don’t love being famous. The hardest part is losing the invisibility you have when you’re not successful, which lets you create the things that make you successful in the first place. So when I dropped off, I shaved my head, no one recognized me, and I could go back to doing normal things.”
However, she admits she lost confidence in her work. The successful songs from her last hit album, “Sweet Talker,” were written by others and held no personal meaning for her. “I just retreated and said, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ I kind of gave up, took a break, and declared, ‘I’m done with the industry.'”
She stepped away and recorded “R.O.S.E.,” a deliberately uncommercial album about her struggles from ages 25 to 30. She loved making it, but it didn’t sell well. “The label didn’t really support me because they didn’t get it; it wasn’t another ‘Bang Bang.’ But…””Some of my favorite songs I’ve written are on R.O.S.E.” It’s interesting that she says her early music stopped meaning anything to her. Last year, reports claimed she made £7.6 million in 2023, leading to speculation that she sold the rights to her music. Is that true? “No!!!” she laughs. But Cornish is a terrible liar. She looks embarrassed. “I don’t know! Err. I might have.” She pauses and, to the tune of “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” sings: “Moving on to another question because I don’t know what to say to that one.” I tell her I was just curious. “Music’s supposed to come and go,” she says. “Let it go. It’s like your wardrobe. You’ve got to have a little clear-out now and then.”
‘It was a selfish, amazing life I had in LA. Not the kind of life I could maintain with a child and a partner.’ (Blazer and trousers: Rebecca Valance. Shoes: Gianvito Rossi. Necklace: Giovanni Raspini)
While R.O.S.E. flopped commercially, in 2018 she enjoyed her most surprising success when she appeared on the Chinese talent show Singer. By then, she was living in Los Angeles and had become a distant memory for many in Britain. “My managers at the time said, ‘This TV show keeps asking, and you’d be a special guest,’ and I said, ‘Just say yes.’ They asked, ‘Don’t you want to know more?’ and I said, ‘Nope, just sign me up, I need a shake-up.’ And that was it. I thought I was a special guest for three weeks, but when I landed in China, I found out I was a contestant in a competition, and I didn’t even know. I sang ‘Domino’ on the first show and won, then I won the next and the next, and they asked, ‘Do you want to stay on?’ and I said, ‘Well, yeah!'”
The show was regularly watched by 500 million people. After 11 episodes, Cornish reached the final, which had an audience of 1.2 billion. She sang “I Will Always Love You” and won the contest. It’s a moving moment when she realizes she’s won—a mix of shock, confusion (literally, because it was in Chinese), and euphoria. What did winning mean to her? “Oh! To be celebrated as a singer like that, I hadn’t experienced that before.” Does she think she should have been more respected as a singer? “No, but I always say the people who know I can sing wouldn’t buy my music, and the people who buy my music probably don’t know I can sing that way.”
Her new music feels incredibly personal. At times, it seems like the songs are private messages to all the people she’s been closest to throughout her adult life.
Where does the album’s title come from? “I say ‘Don’t tease me with a good time’ all the time.” She explains it can be genuine when someone tempts her with a kind offer, but often it’s sarcastic. She gives an example: “‘So, do you want to have breast cancer surgery?’ ‘Don’t tease me with a good time!'”
The song “I Don’t Care” ends with her monologuing: “So let’s raise a glass to us and to those still finding the courage to walk away from the gaslighters, the abusers, the narcissists.” Who are the gaslighters, abusers, and narcissists? “They’re the men in my career and my life who have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am.” They said that to your face? “Oh yeah, all the time. 100%.” Was this more in her personal or professional life? “More business. Maybe a couple of guys I dated, but nothing serious. I wouldn’t get serious with someone like that.”
In the song “Complicated,” she summarizes the first decade of her career. I quote her lines back to her: “2010 was the year I didn’t know what I was doing. I sang so loud. Insecure, but nobody knew it.” Yes, she says, well, she did.In 2012, Jessie J sang about breaking up with her “beautiful girlfriend” and addressing the media’s portrayal of their relationship as a phase, apologizing with the line, “With the press in my face, called it a phase, babe I’m sorry.” When she first gained fame, she was in a relationship with a woman and identified as bisexual. After their split, she referred to it as just a phase, which upset many LGBT+ fans. Now, thirteen years later, she is publicly apologizing—not to those who took offense, but to her ex-partner. She admits her wording was clumsy at the time and clarifies, “It wasn’t me saying I’m not bisexual. I think I’m always going to be attracted to women. I’m so honest and open about it, but I don’t want a label on it, like ‘Jessie J the bisexual singer.'” When asked if she’s still in touch with her ex, she replies, “No, not any more,” sounding sad. She acknowledges that her comments likely hurt her ex, reflecting, “Yeah, I’m sure it hurt her because our relationship was amazing and we were really serious. We lived together for a long time; around three years.”
Jessie also shares her concerns about the political climate, noting, “My American friends are scared. They’re not what Trump wants them to look like, be like, or feel like.”
Her life has continued to be complicated. In 2014, she felt everyone hated her; in 2015, she was told she couldn’t have children; in 2016 and 2017, she went through a period of self-grief; and in 2018, she “met a Magic Mike,” referring to her then-boyfriend Channing Tatum, who starred in the Magic Mike films. She remarks that this relationship often overshadowed her own identity in the media: “Cos everything they write, that’s the headline, that’s the topic.” She consulted Tatum about the song referencing him, and he was fine with it. Reflecting on their relationship now, she says, “Oh, he’s so sweet. Oh my God, yeah! Channing is such a sweet guy. We were such good friends and had such a good time together.” In this dynamic, he was the star, and she was the plus-one, giving her insight into what her past partners might have experienced. “It did get frustrating. It felt that everything I read about myself was about him.”
When I suggest that the song “Threw It Away” is about Tatum (with lyrics like “I gave you my love/ You threw it away”), she laughs and starts singing it. “Yeah, I reckon there’s probably a little bit of that in there,” she admits. “But it wasn’t just about him. I dated a lot of people when I was in LA, and there were lots of men who were, like, ‘Yeah, ride on my motorbike and I’ll show you around,’ and then they just drop you off. That’s the negative of LA.”
She spent a decade in Los Angeles, calling them her “solo” years. “It was a really selfish, amazing life I had. But it wasn’t the kind of life I could maintain with a child and a partner. When I had Sky, I thought I didn’t want to raise my son away from his immediate family. And my partner’s Danish, so we wanted to be closer to Denmark, too.”
Last year, she moved back to Britain with her partner, Danish-Israeli basketball player Chanan Colman, and their son Sky. “I just felt the new chapter was going to be here. It was the day that Trump got elected that I left. It was the day we planned to leave, so it felt aligned.” When asked if she wanted to distance herself from Trump, she replied, “As far away as possible, please. I feel awful for the people who are still there. So many of my friends are struggling mentally with America right now. It actually scares me that I can’t even get into that mindset to try to understand what he does. It’s the polar opposite of what I believe in, which is equality and love and everybody having the freedom to enjoy the life they want to.” Does she think Trump is preventing people from living that life? “Of course he is, yeah. So many of…”My friends in America are scared because they don’t fit his idea of how they should look, act, or feel. And what is that ideal? “Him!”
Two songs on the album deal with the loss of loved ones. “Comes in Waves” is about the baby she lost, with Cornish singing, “I hate how much I miss the future we never made.” In 2021, while single, she became pregnant through IVF but miscarried after 10 weeks. Was it a difficult choice to pursue single motherhood? “No, I wanted to be a mom, and I wasn’t in a relationship. I had endometriosis and had undergone tests that showed a low egg count, with doctors warning that if I didn’t get pregnant within a year, natural conception would be unlikely. Obviously, that wasn’t true, since I eventually did.” The lyrics to “Comes in Waves” are deeply emotional, with Cornish baring her vulnerability like delicate armor. Yet it’s also a defiant song that looks forward to Sky’s birth, vowing, “Next time you come to me I’ll make a place for you to stay.” She repeats the line for me, adding, “And I did. I fucking did it. I’m so proud of myself. I went full term. I had a C-section, which I didn’t want, but it didn’t matter.” Does she feel the baby she lost is still with her? “Always. They say a baby’s DNA remains in you, so part of that DNA will be in Sky and me forever. But I believe it didn’t happen because I wasn’t meant to do it alone.”
The song “I’ll Never Know Why” is equally heartbreaking. In it, she blames herself for not realizing an unnamed friend was “lost and hopeless,” asking him, “How could you say goodbye without saying goodbye?” In 2018, shortly after she won Singer, her bodyguard and close friend Dave Last died unexpectedly. When I ask if the song is about him, she nods. Silence. Did he take his own life? She nods again, struggling to speak. “I miss him so much, man. He was my guy for seven years. He was like my big brother. It saddens me that he felt so lonely he reached that point without reaching out to me. I hope the song can help those left behind and also show anyone considering it how much they’re loved and missed.”
Cornish held it together while discussing her miscarriage and cancer, but now tears flow. “He was one of my favorite people in the world,” she says. On tour, he was the first and last person she saw each day. “After every show, we’d go for a walk, and he’d always ask, ‘Have you got your hoodie?’ I’m performing the song at the Royal Variety Show, and I’ll be wearing a hoodie.”
She describes the album as her journey through grief. Though it ends positively with songs like “Living My Best Life” and “H.A.P.P.Y,” it stops before the joy of having a baby with Colman. Cornish is eager to write about that in her next album. She says she’s never loved anyone the way she loves Colman. “Giving birth to someone’s child is unique. It’s forever part of our relationship because when I look at my son, I see his and my faces combined. That’s a different kind of love.”
Undoubtedly, she’ll also reflect on her cancer experience in future work. She’s been given the all-clear but knows there’s a risk of recurrence. However, she believes life’s too short to worry, with so much to focus on—motherhood, touring, writing, recording, and stand-up comedy. “I just have to hope it doesn’t come back,” she says. “And if it does, we’ll fucking deal with it then.” Jessie J’s new studio album, “Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time,” is out now in the UK and Ireland.If you’re in the UK or Ireland, you can reach Samaritans by calling 116 123 for free, or by emailing jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by calling or texting 988, visiting 988lifeline.org to chat, or texting HOME to 741741 to speak with a crisis counselor. Australians can call Lifeline at 13 11 14. For support in other countries, visit befrienders.org to find a helpline near you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Of course Here is a list of FAQs about Jessie Js cancer journey her return to the spotlight and her breakthrough in China with clear and concise answers
General Beginner Questions
1 What kind of cancer did Jessie J have
Jessie J was diagnosed with Menieres disease which affects the inner ear and later revealed she had a precancerous condition on her tongue
2 When was she diagnosed
She first opened up about her health struggles in 2015 with the more serious precancerous diagnosis coming to light in 2022
3 Is Jessie J cancerfree now
Yes she has stated that the precancerous cells were successfully removed and she is now in good health
About Her Cancer Journey Mindset
4 How did her cancer journey change her outlook on life
It inspired her to stop taking life for granted and to embrace every moment more fully focusing on joy and gratitude
5 What specific things does she do now to embrace life
She prioritizes her mental health spends quality time with loved ones and says yes to new experiences that bring her happiness
6 Did she ever think she might not sing again
Yes she has spoken about the fear that her health issues particularly those affecting her throat and ear could end her singing career
Her Return to the Spotlight
7 How did she make her return to the public eye
She made a highprofile return by competing on and winning the Chinese singing competition Singer in 2018
8 Was it difficult for her to return to performing after her health scare
Yes it was emotionally and physically challenging but she has said it made her performances more authentic and powerful because she wasnt taking the opportunity for granted
9 What was the publics reaction to her comeback
The reaction was overwhelmingly positive and supportive with many fans praising her courage and powerful voice
Her Breakthrough in China
10 What is Jessie Js connection to China
She gained massive popularity there after winning the reality show Singer in 2018 becoming the first international artist to win the competition
11 Why was her win on Singer such a big deal
It was a huge deal because she competed against established Chinese artists won over the audience with her
