You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. There she was preparing for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Later next release, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly coping with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and large glasses. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but however Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal four months ago and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with health crises. Frequently they align with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in the production (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
