You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. At that moment preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, actual name Jess Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The album, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly coping with the disease. A month later she shared the news, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, cream boots and large glasses. Picture biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Jessie is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I often tease the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was getting ready for an slot at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. During crises you are wheeled, but this time I just strolled down with a gown on and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is familiar with health problems. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. Frequently they align with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her youth, already starting her career starring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and young Jessica has entered the female band the group while attending the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
