You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. There she was preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, her latest release, was meant as an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later next release, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with the disease. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and oversized specs. Imagine motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show next year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I often tease the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. During crises you roll down in a bed, but then I just strolled down with a gown on and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but however Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened four months ago and my one side now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her chest, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is no stranger to illness. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already making her debut starring in the West End in a musical (she was selected 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 dizziness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the trio the group while studying at the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees