You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. At that moment readying for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later second single, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and large glasses. Think motorcycle style 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. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is sharp-witted, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an appearance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after a long hiatus and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my one side now looks like a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is no stranger to illness. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to medical emergencies. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to highlight not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the West End in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the medical problem WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and teenage Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
