You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time coping with her cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ 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 photography studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and oversized specs. Picture motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show soon. “I enjoy humor. On stage I basically roast the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was preparing for an performance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but then I just strolled down with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already beginning starring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band the group while attending the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
