You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. There she was preparing for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the mother of a toddler having struggled to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Then in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, real name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, miscarriage, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, No secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then second single, Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with breast cancer.A month later she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …'” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.We’re at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and oversized specs.Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” she grins. Cornish is rapid, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy, and is hoping to make her standup debut next year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I basically roast the audience.”## “cancer Sucks,Man,But…”: Claudia Karvan on Facing a Mastectomy with Grit and Humour
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under.They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but this time I just strolled down with a gown on and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs,she notes,are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. how rude! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s familiar with health crises.They have frequently enough coincided with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”I loved it. I loved learning,I loved it being different every day,loved not wearing uniform,the auditions. I would audition for everything.That’s how I got into the girl band that got me the first deal.”
cornish first experienced success aged 21 as part of the team who wrote party in the USA for miley Cyrus in 2009. A year later, she had her first hit with Do It Like a Dude. The song was three minutes of promotional self-referencing (“hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey … J-J-J-J Jessie J”), female empowering, male parodying, double-entendre indulging (“Boys, you, you need to lick my dollar … boys, g-getting hot under the collar”) poptastic filth. This was also her debut as Jessie J.
Jessica, Jessie, Jess. I ask her which name she prefers.”Jess,” she says instantly. “I hate Jessie. It’s like a dog’s name. ‘Jessie, come back here!'” She whistles herself over, as if she were a dog. “The J makes it somehow nicer. It changes the whole thing.”
Do It Like a Dude was followed by Price tag, her first no 1 and still her most famous song. Price Tag is infectious bubble-gum pop about the primacy of happiness over money. But Cornish says it is indeed also a critique of the industry she had barely entered. “It was about being a statistic and a number at a record label and it not being about talent or the truth.” She sings a line to illustrate her point, as she frequently enough does. “‘when the sale comes first and the truth comes second just stop for a minute and smile.’ I was already tired of contracts. I was so frustrated when I wrote that song. What you were trying to say wasn’t important, it was just about how much money can we make from this person.”
While R.O.S.E. flopped commercially, in 2018 she enjoyed her most surprising success when she entered the Chinese talent contest Singer. By then she was living in Los Angeles and was a distant memory for many of us in Britain. “My managers at the time said, ‘This TV show keeps coming in, and you’d be a special guest’, and I said, ‘Just say yes to it.’ They were, like, ‘D’you want to know more?’, and I was, like, ‘Nope, just sign me up, I need a shake-up.’ And that was it. I thought I was a special guest for three weeks, and I land in china and I’m a contestant on a competition and I didn’t even know. I sang Domino on the first show and won that, then I won the next and the next, and they were, like, ‘D’you want to stay on?’, and I was, like, ‘Well, yeah!'”
The show was regularly watched by 500 million people. After 11 episodes, Cornish got to the final, which had an audience of 1.2 billion. She sang I Will Always Love You, and won the contest. It’s such a moving moment when she realises she’s won. A mix of shock, incomprehension (literally because it’s in Chinese) and euphoria. What did winning mean to her? “Oh! To be celebrated as a singer like that,I hadn’t had that before.” Does she think she should have been respected more 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 seems incredibly personal. At times, it feels 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 somebody tempts her with a kind offer.But often it’s sarcastic. She gives me 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 that 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 ti## Florence Welch on Love, Loss and leaving America
“it did get frustrating. It felt that everything I read about myself was about him.” Florence Welch is referring, of course, to her former relationship with Dev Hynes. she concedes that her song “Threw it Away” likely draws from that experience (“I gave you my love/ You threw it away.”) but clarifies it wasn’t solely inspired by 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.”
Welch spent a decade in Los Angeles, describing it as a “really selfish, amazing life” – one she couldn’t sustain after becoming a mother. “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 saw a return to Britain with her partner, Danish-Israeli basketball player Chanan Colman, and their son.The timing, she reveals, was intentional. “It was the day that Trump got elected that I left. It was the day we planned to leave, so it felt aligned.” She expresses a strong desire to distance herself from his politics. “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.” She believes Trump actively hinders that freedom, noting the fear felt by friends who don’t fit his vision. “Him!” she exclaims, when asked to define that vision.
Two songs on her new album grapple with grief. “Comes in Waves” addresses a lost pregnancy, with the poignant lyric: “I hate how much I miss the future we never made.” Welch recounts a 2021 experience where,as a single woman,she underwent IVF and suffered a miscarriage after ten weeks. She states that the decision to possibly become a single mother wasn’t a difficult one.
Jessie J on Motherhood,Cancer,and Her New Album “Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time”
Table of Contents
Jessie J is opening up about the joys of motherhood,her recent cancer battle,and her latest musical endeavor,the album Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time. The singer, who welcomed her son in May 2024 with partner Chanan Safir Colman, describes the experience of parenthood as profoundly unique and life-altering.She also shares her perspective on facing a potential cancer recurrence after receiving a clean bill of health.
The Unique Bond of Motherhood
Jessie J emphasizes the special connection forged through childbirth. “Birthing someone’s child is so unique. It’s forever engraved in our relationship because I’m looking at my son and it’s literally his and my face mashed together. That’s a different kind of love,” she stated in a recent interview. This sentiment highlights the deeply personal and transformative experience of becoming a mother.
Facing the future After Cancer
In 2023, Jessie J revealed her diagnosis of Meniere’s disease, a disorder affecting the inner ear, and subsequently shared her battle with cancer. She has since been given the all-clear, but remains aware of the possibility of the cancer returning. Despite this uncertainty, she maintains a positive outlook, choosing to focus on living life to the fullest. “Life’s too short to worry about that, though,” she explained. “There’s so much to be getting on with – motherhood, touring, writing, recording, standup comedy.” She adopts a pragmatic approach, stating, “I’ve just got to hope it doesn’t come back, and if it does, then we’ll fucking deal with that when we get to it.”
“Don’t Tease me With a Good Time” and Beyond
Jessie J’s new studio album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, is now available. The album represents another chapter in her multifaceted career, alongside her roles as a mother, performer, and creative artist.
If you are struggling with difficult emotions or considering suicide, please reach out for help.
* Samaritans (UK & Ireland): Call freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie.
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