You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. There she was readying for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in March she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later next release, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while still secretly coping with the disease. Subsequently she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. When performing I often tease the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have shown aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. 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 terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but now I just walked with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal four months ago and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is no stranger to illness. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her youth, already beginning performing in the stage in a musical (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and teenage Jess has joined the trio the group while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
