You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with breast cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the picture. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Cornish is quick, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was planning an appearance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now resembles a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, 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 avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has often paired with achievements for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her youth, already beginning performing in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and young Jessica has entered the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, wait, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
