You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. At that moment preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was meant as an open book, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The first single, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time living with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Think biker chic meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is quick, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance next year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
She was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘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, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have indicated malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. During crises you go on a gurney, but this time I just walked with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “It’s terrible, but however Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened a few months back and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to remind her not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
