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You can’t imagine it, the singer says. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was told she had breast cancer.

The musician, birth name Jess Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an candid account, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly coping with her cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.

She offers me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.

We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and oversized specs. Picture motorcycle style meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show soon. “I enjoy humor. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”

Personal Battles and News

Cornish was planning an performance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It seems benign; 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 said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had assured herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.

“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt 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 viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. During crises you roll down in a bed, but this time I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal four months ago and my affected breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, 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 ideal. Illness changed that.”

Past Medical Issues

The singer is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to medical emergencies. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”

She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut performing in the London theater in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered 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 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”

Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees