You can’t imagine it, the singer states. There she was preparing for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Then in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. 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 (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The first single, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with her cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. When performing I often tease the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after eight years without an album and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have indicated malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened four months ago and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut performing in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and young Jessica has entered the female band the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
