You can’t imagine it, the singer says. At that moment readying for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with her cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ 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 photography studio in London. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I basically roast the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was planning an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her childhood, already starting her career starring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and teenage Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
