You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual 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 faced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The initial release, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, referencing the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Jessie is quick, bold and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her initial standup show in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I basically roast the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was preparing for an slot at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after years away and no new music. 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 expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have come back as aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. During crises you go on a gurney, but this time I just walked with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut performing in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and young Jessica has joined the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
