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You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. At that moment preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.

The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, her latest release, was intended as an open book, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with the disease. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.

She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.

We meet at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, referencing the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is quick, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the fans.”

Personal Battles and News

The artist was preparing for an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had so much on.

“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after eight years without an album and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but this time I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal four months ago and my affected breast now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”

The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”

Previous Struggles

She is familiar with health problems. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Frequently they align with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”

She recalls to her youth, already beginning featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group the group while attending the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”

Oi, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees