You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The musician, birth name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was thriving, while all the while dealing with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and large glasses. Picture motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her standup debut soon. “I enjoy humor. On stage I frequently joke about the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was planning an performance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after a long hiatus and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? 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?. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now appears as a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is no stranger to illness. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to remind her not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning performing in the London theater in the production (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has become part of the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
