You can’t imagine it, the singer says. There she was gearing up 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 struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while dealing with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine motorcycle style meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance soon. “I love making people laugh. During performances I basically roast the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was getting ready for an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘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 concerning she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. During crises you are wheeled, but then I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my one side now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is no stranger to illness. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. They have often coincided with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and teenage Jess has entered the trio the group while enrolled in the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
