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 at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The musician, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The album, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with breast cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, beige footwear and big frames. Imagine biker chic meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, referencing the picture. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Cornish is sharp-witted, bold and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I often tease the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was planning an slot at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an scan, and they said, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after a long hiatus and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a gown on and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal four months ago and my affected breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is no stranger to illness. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut performing in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “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 young Jessica has entered the trio the group while studying at the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
