🔗 Share this article

You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. There she was gearing up for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Then in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.

The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an open book, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The first single, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.

She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.

We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and large glasses. Imagine motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”

Medical Challenges and Discovery

The artist was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had a busy schedule.

“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after a long hiatus and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”

The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”

Past Medical Issues

She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, acting as a reminder, or blow, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”

She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while attending 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 larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”

Oi, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees