You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. There she was gearing up for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The record, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while still secretly coping with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the film. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Cornish is quick, bold and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her standup debut soon. “I like entertaining. During performances I often tease the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was planning an slot at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album and an extended break. 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 join the call expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a gown on and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened a few months back and my one side now looks like a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her chest, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her perspective on the cancer 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 make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut performing in the West End in the production (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
