You can’t imagine it, the singer says. There she was readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then second single, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while still secretly dealing with her cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Picture motorcycle style meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the film. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut next year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was preparing for an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an scan, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my one side now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly 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 believes her attitude toward illness has been so positive 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 make her recall not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her childhood, already starting her career starring in the West End in the production (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
