You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. There she was readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The initial release, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Later second single, 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 breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and large glasses. Imagine rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show soon. “I enjoy humor. When performing I basically roast the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a gown on and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is no stranger to illness. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in health crises. Frequently they align with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to remind her not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has often paired with high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in the production (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Wow, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
