You can’t imagine it, the singer states. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Jessie is sharp-witted, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show soon. “I like entertaining. When performing I often tease the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after a long hiatus and no new music. 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 jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you roll down in a bed, but this time I just walked with a gown on and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal four months ago and my affected breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning performing in the West End in the production (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and teenage Jess has entered the female band the group while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
