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You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. 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 ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.

The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, tackling every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time dealing with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.

She shoots me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.

We meet at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and oversized specs. Picture biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut soon. “I love making people laugh. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”

Medical Challenges and Discovery

She was getting ready for an appearance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an scan, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.

“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after eight years without an album and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but this time I just marched with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened recently and my affected breast now looks like a odd shape.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”

The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”

A History of Health Challenges

The singer is familiar with health problems. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”

She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut featuring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the medical problem WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and young Jessica has joined the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a year.”

Hey, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees