You can’t imagine it, the singer says. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored 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 told she had breast cancer.
The artist, real name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an candid account, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with breast cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and large glasses. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, unfiltered 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. During performances I often tease the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought 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 frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but now I just marched with a gown on and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened four months ago and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is no stranger to illness. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut performing in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and young Jessica has joined the female band Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
