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You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Then in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.

The musician, birth name Jess Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. 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 (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later second single, her song 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 dealing with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.

She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.

We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her standup debut soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the audience.”

Personal Battles and News

Cornish was planning an slot at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense 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 following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had many commitments.

“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”

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

She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”

The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”

Previous Struggles

She is no stranger to illness. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to highlight not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”

She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group the group while attending the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”

Oi, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees