You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, her latest release, was intended as an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later second single, Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly dealing with her cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and large glasses. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Cornish is quick, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was planning an performance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after a long hiatus and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have indicated malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a hospital gown and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened a few months back and my one side now resembles a odd shape.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, wait, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
