You can’t imagine it, the singer states. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The first single, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while at the same time coping with breast cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and large glasses. Think rocker vibe meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is quick, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her standup debut soon. “I like entertaining. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They lead you. During crises you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a medical attire and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my affected breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Frequently they align with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the heart condition WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. 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 long period.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
