You can’t imagine it, the singer states. There she was readying for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Then in spring she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an open book, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, broken romances, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with the disease. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and large glasses. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes 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 an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but this time I just marched with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened recently and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Ironically 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
She is no stranger to illness. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s used to physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ From a young age, 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 making her debut starring in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward several years, and young Jessica has joined the female band the group while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
