You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Then in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with typical candour. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with the disease. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, cream boots and large glasses. Imagine motorcycle style meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. She is sharp-witted, bold and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show next year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I basically roast the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an appearance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ 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 fear going under. They lead you. During crises you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a gown on and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal four months ago and my affected breast now resembles a odd shape.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. 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 obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or shock, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already beginning starring in the West End in the production (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group the group while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
