You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. There she was 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 facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, birth name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later next release, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Jessie is sharp-witted, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I frequently joke about the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was planning an performance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ 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 good, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have indicated malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you are wheeled, but this time I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “It’s terrible, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy recently and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s used to health crises. Frequently they align with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and young Jessica has entered the female band the group while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a year.”
Oi, I say, wait, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
