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You can’t imagine it, the singer states. At that moment readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.

The singer-songwriter, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while at the same time living with the disease. A month later she shared the news, and in July she received surgical treatment.

She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.

Our interview takes place at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. When performing I often tease the crowd.”

Medical Challenges and Discovery

The artist was planning an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had many commitments.

“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, 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 difficult experience. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”

Previous Struggles

She is no stranger to illness. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”

She reminisces to her childhood, already starting her career performing in the West End in the production (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward several years, and teenage Jess has entered the female band the group while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. 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 year.”

Wow, I say, wait, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees