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You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was told she had breast cancer.

The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The album, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then next release, Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while still secretly dealing with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.

She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.

We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Jessie is sharp-witted, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”

Personal Battles and News

The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had assured herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.

“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted 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 positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. During crises you go on a gurney, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”

The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”

A History of Health Challenges

Cornish is familiar with health problems. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Frequently they align with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”

She recalls to her youth, already starting her career performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and teenage Jess 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 planning to release songs in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”

Oi, I say, hold on, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees