You can’t imagine it, the singer says. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, her latest release, was meant as an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while still secretly coping with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and oversized specs. Picture motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Jessie is quick, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show soon. “I love making people laugh. On stage I often tease the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was preparing for an slot at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. 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 considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They lead you. During crises you go on a gurney, but then I just strolled down with a gown on and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened recently and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with achievements for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her childhood, already making her debut performing 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 tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
