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You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. There she was preparing for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.

The musician, actual name J. Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The LP, her latest release, was meant as an open book, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, miscarriage, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while dealing with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in July she had a mastectomy.

She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.

We meet at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and oversized specs. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is quick, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I basically roast the fans.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

Cornish was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.

“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after years away and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but now I just walked with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened four months ago and my right breast now resembles a odd shape.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”

The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”

A History of Health Challenges

She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”

She takes me back to her youth, already starting her career performing in the stage in a musical (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the trio the group while attending the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”

Wow, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees