You can’t imagine it, the singer says. There she was gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Then in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an transparent story, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. She is quick, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I enjoy humor. During performances I frequently joke about the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was preparing for an slot at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. 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 found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but this time I just walked with a gown on and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened a few months back and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, no need to bully me, 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 ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is no stranger to illness. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her youth, already beginning featuring in the stage in the production (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and teenage Jess has entered the girl group the group while attending the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
