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You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.

The musician, birth name Jess Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with breast cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.

She shoots me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.

Our interview takes place at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. When performing I basically roast the audience.”

Personal Battles and News

The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.

“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after years away and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but however Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal recently and my right breast now resembles a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”

The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”

Past Medical Issues

The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”

She reminisces to her youth, already starting her career featuring in the stage in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group the group while studying at the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a long period.”

Oi, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees