You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The musician, actual name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time dealing with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “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 beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her standup debut in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was planning an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after a long hiatus and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but then I just walked with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. They have often coincided with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her youth, already starting her career starring in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has joined the trio Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, 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 lost my voice for a long period.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
