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You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Then in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.

The singer-songwriter, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then next release, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with her cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.

She gives me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.

We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and oversized specs. Imagine rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Jessie is fast-thinking, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the audience.”

Personal Battles and News

The artist was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.

“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, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”

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

She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a gown on and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my one side now appears as a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”

The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”

A History of Health Challenges

She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Frequently they align with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”

She recalls to her youth, already beginning featuring in the West End in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the medical problem WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the female band the group while attending the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”

Wow, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees