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You can’t imagine it, the singer says. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.

The musician, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.

She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.

We’re at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Think rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the crowd.”

Medical Challenges and Discovery

She was preparing for an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.

“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”

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

She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation 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 believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. Frequently they align with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”

She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career performing in the West End in a musical (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”

Wow, I say, wait, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees