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You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was found to have breast cancer.

The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The initial release, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then second single, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while at the same time living with her 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 release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.

Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the audience.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

Cornish was planning an appearance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an scan, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.

“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am

She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my right breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”

A History of Health Challenges

Cornish is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. Frequently they align with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with achievements for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”

She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut performing in the stage in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and young Jessica has joined the trio Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”

Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees