You can’t imagine it, the singer says. At that moment readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The initial release, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with the disease. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and big frames. Think rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the film. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Cornish is quick, irreverent and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was planning an performance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. During crises you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched 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 fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal recently and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career starring in the London theater in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the girl group the group while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
