You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Then in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The first single, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while dealing with her cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, referencing the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is quick, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ 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 scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They lead you. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but this time I just marched with a gown on and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened four months ago and my affected breast now resembles a odd shape.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, 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 perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already beginning performing in the West End in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
