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You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Then in March she was told she had breast cancer.

The singer-songwriter, actual name J. Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The LP, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.

She offers me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.

We’re at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and oversized specs. Imagine motorcycle style meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Jessie is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. When performing I often tease the audience.”

Personal Battles and News

She was preparing for an slot at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had many commitments.

“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. During crises you roll down in a bed, but now I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”

The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”

Previous Struggles

She is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to physical challenges. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”

She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already beginning featuring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and young Jessica has joined the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”

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