You can’t imagine it, the singer states. At that moment preparing for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be 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, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. She is sharp-witted, bold and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her initial standup show soon. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after a long hiatus and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. During crises you roll down in a bed, 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, she notes, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now appears as a odd shape.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
