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You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. There she was gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.

The singer-songwriter, actual name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with the disease. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.

She offers me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.

We meet at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Jessie is sharp-witted, bold and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I basically roast the fans.”

Medical Challenges and Discovery

The artist was planning an appearance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.

“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after eight years without an album and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. During crises you are wheeled, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened four months ago and my affected breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”

A History of Health Challenges

The singer is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”

She recalls to her childhood, already beginning performing in the stage in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue 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 drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and teenage Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while attending the academy. “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 couldn’t sing for a long period.”

Oi, I say, wait, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees