You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. At that moment readying for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The LP, her latest release, was supposed to be an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with the disease. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and big frames. Picture motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is sharp-witted, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her standup debut next year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I basically roast the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after a long hiatus and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. During crises you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened four months ago and my one side now looks like a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Frequently they align with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already beginning featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
