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You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. At that moment readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.

The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The first single, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while coping with breast cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.

She offers me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.

We meet at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. She is sharp-witted, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I basically roast the audience.”

Personal Battles and News

The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.

“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after years away 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 expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but then I just walked with a gown on and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my affected breast now appears as a odd shape.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”

Previous Struggles

She is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to highlight not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”

She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning starring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a long period.”

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