You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The LP, her latest release, was intended as an candid account, tackling every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time dealing with her cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I basically roast the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
She was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘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 informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal four months ago and my affected breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, 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 obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
