You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Then in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The record, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, addressing every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time dealing with her cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a studio in London. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Cornish is sharp-witted, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was preparing for an appearance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album 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, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. During crises you roll down in a bed, but then I just marched with a gown on and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
