You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Then in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The album, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an transparent story, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with her cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in London. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Think biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is sharp-witted, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I often tease the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was planning an slot at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after years away and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought 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 fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened recently and my affected breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to remind her not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning starring in the stage in the production (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees