You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, on top of the world. Then in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an candid account, addressing every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while coping with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and big frames. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was planning an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an test, and they said, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my one side now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is familiar with health problems. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Frequently they align with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the heart condition 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 drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward several years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the female band the group while attending the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
