You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. At that moment preparing for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, actual name Jess Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The record, her latest release, was meant as an candid account, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was planning an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have shown malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They lead you. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but then I just marched with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but however Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened four months ago and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
She is familiar with health problems. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in the production (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has joined the female band Soul Deep while studying at 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 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Oi, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
