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You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. At that moment readying for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.

The musician, actual name Jess Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The LP, her latest release, was supposed to be an transparent story, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later next release, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while still secretly coping with her cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.

She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.

We’re at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is sharp-witted, 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 enjoy humor. During performances I often tease the fans.”

Personal Battles and News

Cornish was planning an performance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had so much on.

“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after years away and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a hospital gown and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”

A History of Health Challenges

She is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to highlight not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”

She reminisces to her childhood, already starting her career performing in the London theater in the production (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward six years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a long period.”

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