You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Then in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The LP, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while at the same time dealing with breast cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and large glasses. Think biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the film. “They used to call me that!” She grins. She is quick, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her initial standup show soon. “I love making people laugh. During performances I often tease the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was planning an slot at the awards show when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. During crises you go on a gurney, but then I just marched with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened recently and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or shock, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her youth, already making her debut featuring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the trio the group while studying at the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
