You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jessica Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The album, her latest release, was intended as an candid account, tackling every moment of pain she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later next release, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while at the same time dealing with breast cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Picture biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Jessie is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show next year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but now I just walked with a gown on and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my affected breast now looks like a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. 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. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is no stranger to illness. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s used to physical challenges. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already making her debut starring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the trio Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Oi, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
