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You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. There she was gearing up for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.

The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was intended as an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. 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 the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while still secretly dealing with breast cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.

She gives me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.

We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think biker chic meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I enjoy humor. On stage I frequently joke about the fans.”

Medical Challenges and Discovery

The artist was planning an performance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was inopportune 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 an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘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, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a gown on and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened a few months back and my right breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”

The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she notes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly 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.”

Past Medical Issues

Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”

She takes me back to her youth, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in the production (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and young Jessica has joined the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”

Oi, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees