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You can’t imagine it, the singer states. At that moment readying for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, on top of the world. Then in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.

The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The record, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an candid account, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while at the same time dealing with the disease. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she had a mastectomy.

She gives me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.

We’re at a studio in London. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and large glasses. Imagine rocker vibe meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. During performances I basically roast the audience.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

She was planning an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had many commitments.

“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal four months ago and my affected breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”

The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”

A History of Health Challenges

The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Frequently they align with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”

She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning starring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a long period.”

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