You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. There she was readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The album, her latest release, was meant as an open book, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with her cancer. Four weeks after she went public, 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 doing every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and big frames. Think rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
She was planning an slot at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful 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 dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. During crises you roll down in a bed, but now I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal recently and my affected breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has often paired with high points for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut starring 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 Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and teenage Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
