You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and big frames. Think biker chic meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, referencing the picture. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show next year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an test, and they said, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. During crises you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut performing in the London theater in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and young Jessica has joined the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
