You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The artist, birth name Jess Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The record, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while dealing with the disease. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and oversized specs. Picture biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Cornish is sharp-witted, bold and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut next year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk 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, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal four months ago and my right breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
She is familiar with health problems. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with achievements for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already beginning starring in the West End in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and young Jessica has joined the girl group the group while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, wait, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
