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You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. At that moment readying for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Then in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.

The artist, actual name Jess Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The record, her latest release, was supposed to be an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly dealing with the disease. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in July she had a mastectomy.

She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.

Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is quick, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show next year. “I like entertaining. During performances I often tease the crowd.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

Cornish was planning an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.

“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after years away and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but then I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal recently and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”

The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I thought, why make it worse, 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 perfect. Illness changed that.”

Previous Struggles

The singer is familiar with health problems. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has often paired with high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”

She takes me back to her youth, already beginning featuring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”

Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees