You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. At that moment readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The LP, her latest release, was intended as an open book, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with the disease. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in London. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, beige footwear and oversized specs. Picture motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the movie. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I often tease the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after eight years without an album and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘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 says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a gown on and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened recently and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s used to physical challenges. They have often coincided with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her childhood, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group the group while studying at the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
