You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Then in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The album, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then next release, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time coping with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but then I just marched with a hospital gown and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy 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 follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! 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 perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career performing in the West End in a musical (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward six years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
