You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while still secretly coping with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and big frames. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She grins. She is quick, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I frequently joke about the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
She was preparing for an slot at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she contacted me 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 goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They lead you. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a gown on and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, why make it worse, 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 perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or blow, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut performing in the London theater in the production (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and young Jessica has joined the trio the group while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
