You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The record, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Picture biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Jessie is fast-thinking, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show soon. “I love making people laugh. When performing I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They lead you. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened recently and my one side now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
She is familiar with health problems. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue 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 half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined 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 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
