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You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. There she was gearing up for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Then in March she was told she had breast cancer.

The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with the disease. A month later she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.

She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.

We meet at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the picture. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Jessie is fast-thinking, bold and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her standup debut next year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I basically roast the audience.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

She was getting ready for an appearance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had so much on.

“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am

She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They lead you. During crises you roll down in a bed, but this time I just strolled down with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”

The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”

A History of Health Challenges

Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”

She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career performing in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio the group while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”

Oi, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees