Jessie J has made an emotional return to the stage following a first round of breast cancer surgery, which saw her joined by her two-year-old son.
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On Saturday (September 6), the singer performed at BBC Radio 2 in the Park, 11 weeks after undergoing surgery to treat early breast cancer, and said she was “so grateful” to be there.
“The last show I did, I had no idea what was gonna happen, and I’m still very much in the recovery process,” she told the crowd in Chelmsford, Essex, per Billboard.
“But I’m just so grateful to be here,” she added. “You have no idea how grateful I am to see so many of you singing along after all these years. It truly feels like I’m a little kid. Still doing what I love.”
“And another special thing that’s happening today is that my son is seeing me sing on stage for the first time,” she added. With protective headphones on, two-year-old Sky appeared on stage and sang an impromptu rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’.
Her set last night saw her perform new singles ‘Believe In Magic‘ and ‘Living My Best Life’, telling the audience about how her diagnosis impacted the latter’s release. “I was diagnosed literally two weeks before this song was released,” she explained. “Everyone said, ‘Let’s stop, let’s just put everything on hold,’ and I said, ‘That’s not what life’s about.’”
“Life is about standing in the storm but holding up your umbrella and just keep moving forward. And music, I don’t know about you guys, but for me, music is a healer,” she said.
“Music is the thing that keeps me wanting to wake up in the morning and just makes me excited about life. And I’m grateful that I can make music that can give other people something that they might need on a hard day or a good day.
“So,” she continued, “this song is called ‘Living My Best Life,’ and that is what I’m doing every single damn day. Because we never know when our last day will be. So soak this up, hug the people you love hard.”
The performance comes after the musician confirmed that she is being forced to postpone her UK and European dates as she’s now scheduled to undergo a second surgery for breast cancer.
The popstar announced she had been diagnosed with early breast cancer back in June, and at the time said that “cancer sucks in any form” but she was “holding onto the word ‘early’”. Shortly afterwards, the singer underwent surgery successfully on June 24.
The UK and European leg of the tour was due to kick off in September, but is now being rescheduled for April 2026. All tickets purchased for the October shows will be honoured at the April dates.
Jessie J’s 2026 UK and European tour dates are:
APRIL
07 – Birmingham, Symphony Hall
08 – London – The Palladium
11 – Leeds, O2 Academy
13 – Manchester, Albert Hall
14 – Glasgow, SEC Armadillo
21 – Amsterdam, Paradiso
22 – Brussels, La Madeleine
23 – Cologne, E-Werk
26 – Paris, La Cigale
The singer has also announced that she’s cancelled all of her North American dates. She addressed the matter in a video posted to Instagram: “I need to be better, I need to be healed… here comes the bad news, I haven’t been able to finesse the US dates so those have to be cancelled.”
She went on to say that she already has other tours and shows booked for 2026, so rescheduling the US dates will take a lot more work.
“Forgive me. I’m sorry, this sucks… April 2026 I’ll be on the road for the UK and European shows, and the US dates will be announced as soon as we can find time and it feels good to do them.”
