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 parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an transparent story, addressing every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The lead track, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a studio in London. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and oversized specs. Picture motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Jessie is sharp-witted, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was preparing for an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after years away and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
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. They lead you. During crises you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a hospital gown and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “It’s terrible, but however Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my one side now resembles a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to highlight not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her youth, already beginning featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and young Jessica has joined the girl group the group while attending the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
