You can’t imagine it, the singer says. There she was readying for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Then in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, real name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, her latest release, was meant as an transparent story, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with characteristic openness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with her cancer. A month later she went public, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We’re at a studio in London. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and large glasses. Picture motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was planning an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They lead you. During crises you roll down in a bed, but then I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy recently and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she notes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. 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. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut starring in the stage in a musical (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and young Jessica has become part of the girl group the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
