You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. There she was readying for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Then in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The record, her latest release, was meant as an candid account, addressing every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The lead track, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a studio in London. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and large glasses. Picture motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. She is sharp-witted, bold and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut soon. “I enjoy humor. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but then I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened recently and my one side now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is no stranger to illness. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, acting as a reminder, or shock, to highlight not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut performing in the stage in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
