You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. At that moment readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The album, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was thriving, while at the same time coping with breast cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and large glasses. Picture motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after eight years without an album and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but this time I just strolled down with a medical attire and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her chest, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s used to physical challenges. Frequently they align with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already making her debut performing in the stage 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 Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
