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You can’t imagine it, the singer states. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was found to have breast cancer.

The singer-songwriter, birth name J. Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was talking to press about how she was thriving, while all the while dealing with the disease. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.

She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.

We meet at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine rocker vibe meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the audience.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

Cornish was planning an appearance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had many commitments.

“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ 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 goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have shown malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just strolled down with a gown on and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy recently and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”

Previous Struggles

She is no stranger to illness. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”

She reminisces to her childhood, already starting her career featuring in the stage in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group Soul Deep while studying at 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 recently I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”

Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees