You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. There she was readying for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Then in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The musician, birth name Jess Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an candid account, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The initial release, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with her cancer. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and large glasses. Picture motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, referencing the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, bold and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show next year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I frequently joke about the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was preparing for an slot at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but this time I just strolled down with a gown on and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut starring in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the heart condition WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and young Jessica has joined the female band the group while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
