You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. At that moment readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The album, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time coping with the disease. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show soon. “I enjoy humor. When performing I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was getting ready for an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after a long hiatus and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened a few months back and my right breast now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to health crises. Frequently they align with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with achievements for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already starting her career starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the trio the group while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
