You can’t imagine it, the singer says. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Then in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an candid account, addressing every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and oversized specs. Imagine motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her initial standup show next year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I basically roast the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was planning an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after years away and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have indicated aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal four months ago and my right breast now appears as a odd shape.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut featuring in the West End in the production (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
