You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The musician, birth name Jess Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while all the while living with her cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and large glasses. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was planning an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I immediately went 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, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘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 serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘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 goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have indicated malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but this time I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my affected breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in health crises. Frequently they align with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut featuring in the West End in a musical (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Wow, I say, wait, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
