You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. At that moment readying for her comeback record in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with her cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and large glasses. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance soon. “I love making people laugh. During performances I basically roast the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was preparing for an slot at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing 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 an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “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 found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They lead you. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened four months ago and my right breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her chest, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is familiar with health problems. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in health crises. Frequently they align with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her youth, already making her debut performing in the London theater in the production (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
