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You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was found to have breast cancer.

The musician, actual name Jess Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with breast cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.

She offers me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.

We’re at a photo studio in London. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and big frames. Imagine biker chic meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her standup debut next year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I basically roast the audience.”

Personal Battles and News

The artist was planning an performance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had many commitments.

“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘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 lead you. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a medical attire and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now appears as a odd shape.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”

The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”

Past Medical Issues

The singer is familiar with health problems. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with physical challenges. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has often paired with moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”

She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut performing in the West End in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and teenage Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”

Oi, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees