You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and large glasses. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is sharp-witted, bold and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after years away and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you are wheeled, but this time I just walked with a hospital gown and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my one side now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already beginning featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
