You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The record, her latest release, was meant as an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The first single, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while still secretly dealing with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the movie. “They used to call me that!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her standup debut in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was getting ready for an appearance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but this time I just walked with a hospital gown and my backside 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 procedure. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my affected breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. 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 difficult experience. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, acting as a reminder, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning starring in the West End in a musical (she was cast 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 dizziness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and young Jessica has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
