You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. There she was preparing for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jessica Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an transparent story, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while still secretly dealing with breast cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut soon. “I love making people laugh. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was preparing for an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but this time I just walked with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
She is familiar with health problems. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to highlight not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already beginning performing in the stage in a musical (she was cast 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 fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, 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 lost my voice for a year.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
