You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. There she was readying for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Then in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while at the same time coping with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with ornate white designs, beige footwear and big frames. Picture motorcycle style meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut soon. “I like entertaining. When performing I often tease the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was planning an performance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ 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 doctor told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have shown aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened recently and my affected breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the female band the group while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Wow, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
