You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. There she was preparing for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, actual name Jess Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an candid account, tackling every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and large glasses. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. She is sharp-witted, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I love making people laugh. On stage I often tease the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after a long hiatus and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my affected breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning performing in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
