You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. There she was readying for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The artist, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an candid account, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, 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. Later next release, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly coping with the disease. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and oversized specs. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I basically roast the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
She was planning an slot at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but then I just strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal recently and my one side now resembles a odd shape.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her youth, already starting her career starring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and young Jessica has become part of the girl group the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. 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 twelve months.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
