🔗 Share this article

You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. There she was readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The artist, birth name Jess Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an transparent story, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with her cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.

She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.

Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and large glasses. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Jessie is quick, irreverent and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her initial standup show next year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”

Medical Challenges and Discovery

The artist was preparing for an slot at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.

“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but now I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, 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.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”

A History of Health Challenges

Cornish is no stranger to illness. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”

She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career starring in the West End in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and young Jessica has entered the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”

Hey, I say, wait, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees