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You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in March she was found to have breast cancer.

The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later second single, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly coping with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, 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 giving every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.

We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Imagine motorcycle style meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, referencing the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I enjoy humor. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”

Personal Battles and News

She was planning an slot at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.

“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but then I just strolled down with a gown on and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal four months ago and my affected breast now appears as a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”

The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”

Past Medical Issues

She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s used to physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to highlight not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ 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 starring 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 a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”

Hey, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees