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You can’t imagine it, the singer states. There she was preparing for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was found to have breast cancer.

The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with typical candour. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while still secretly dealing with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in July she received surgical treatment.

She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.

Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and oversized specs. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Jessie is quick, bold and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”

Personal Battles and News

She was planning an performance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts 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 Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.

“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after a long hiatus and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have come back as malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”

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

She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal four months ago and my one side now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”

A History of Health Challenges

She is no stranger to illness. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”

She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut featuring in the West End in a musical (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a long period.”

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