You can’t imagine it, the singer says. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Then in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The LP, her latest release, was supposed to be an candid account, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with the disease. A month later she shared the news, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Jessie is quick, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show next year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was preparing for an appearance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted 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 positive, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They lead you. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut starring in the stage in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and teenage Jess has entered the female band the group while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
