You can’t imagine it, the singer states. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The record, her latest release, was intended as an open book, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time living with the disease. A month later she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I basically roast the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
She was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before 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 assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but now 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 blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already beginning featuring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and young Jessica has joined 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 ready to debut in recently I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
