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You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.

The singer-songwriter, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time living with breast cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.

She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.

We meet at a photo studio in London. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Imagine motorcycle style meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Cornish is quick, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her standup debut soon. “I love making people laugh. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”

Personal Battles and News

The artist was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an scan, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.

“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but this time I just walked with a medical attire and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”

Past Medical Issues

Cornish is no stranger to illness. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”

She recalls to her youth, already beginning performing in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the girl group the group while studying at the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”

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