You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. There she was 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, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an transparent story, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later next release, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while still secretly dealing with the disease. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is sharp-witted, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show soon. “I enjoy humor. During performances I often tease the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a gown on and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened four months ago and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she notes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to health crises. Frequently they align with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already beginning featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band the group while attending the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
