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You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. At that moment readying for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Then in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d endured since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly dealing with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.

She shoots me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.

We meet at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and oversized specs. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Cornish is sharp-witted, bold and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show next year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I basically roast the audience.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

Cornish was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.

“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a gown on and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “It’s terrible, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now appears as a odd shape.” A further beam. “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. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”

Previous Struggles

She is no stranger to illness. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with achievements for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”

She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning starring in the stage in the production (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and teenage Jess has entered the girl group the group while attending the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, 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 throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”

Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees