You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, 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 a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was intended as an candid account, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while at the same time dealing with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and big frames. Imagine biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the film. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. She is quick, irreverent and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was planning an slot at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had assured herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened a few months back and my affected breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her chest, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
