You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. There she was readying for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, on top of the world. Then in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while all the while dealing with her cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and oversized specs. Imagine motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the picture. “They used to call me that!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was planning an appearance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album 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 believing it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but now I just walked with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “It’s terrible, but however Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened a few months back and my right breast now resembles a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is no stranger to illness. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with health crises. Frequently they align with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already starting her career featuring in the West End in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, wait, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
