You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. At that moment preparing for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in March she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The record, her latest release, was intended as an candid account, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and large glasses. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I love making people laugh. When performing I often tease the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. 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 found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but then I just walked with a gown on and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but however Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened recently and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to remind her not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with achievements for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her childhood, already starting her career performing in the West End in the production (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
