You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The album, her latest release, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is quick, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I love making people laugh. When performing I frequently joke about the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
She was planning an appearance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘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 persuaded herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt 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 found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but this time I just strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal four months ago and my one side now appears as a odd shape.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward six years, and young Jessica has become part of the trio Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Oi, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
