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You can’t imagine it, the singer states. At that moment readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.

The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while dealing with her cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.

She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.

Our interview takes place at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Jessie 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.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had many commitments.

“It was a fortnight prior 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 assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. During crises you are wheeled, but this time I just strolled down with a gown on and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened a few months back and my right breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”

The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”

Past Medical Issues

Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s used to physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”

She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning performing in the London theater in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”

Wow, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees