You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The record, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time living with her cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and large glasses. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Cornish is quick, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I basically roast the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was planning an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted 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 believing it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but then I just walked with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. 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 never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut performing in the stage in the production (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
