You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The record, her latest release, was supposed to be an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was talking to press about how she was thriving, while at the same time dealing with the disease. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Imagine biker chic meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. She is sharp-witted, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. When performing I often tease the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after eight years without an album and an extended break. 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 join the call expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘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 found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened recently and my right breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her youth, 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 a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio Soul Deep while studying at 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 collision and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
