You can’t imagine it, 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 mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, her latest release, was intended as an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with her cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Think biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was planning an performance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but then I just marched with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened a few months back and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is familiar with health problems. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her youth, already beginning starring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
