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You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was told she had breast cancer.

The musician, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an open book, tackling every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time dealing with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.

She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.

We meet at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and oversized specs. Think biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, referencing the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Jessie is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I often tease the fans.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

The artist was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had many commitments.

“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my affected breast now appears as a odd shape.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! 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.”

A History of Health Challenges

The singer is no stranger to illness. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”

She reminisces to her childhood, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the medical problem WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep 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 collision and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”

Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees