You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was supposed to be an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and large glasses. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the picture. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show soon. “I love making people laugh. During performances I often tease the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have indicated malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy recently and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has often paired with high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning starring in the West End in the production (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward six years, and young Jessica has entered the female band the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
