You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The initial release, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while at the same time coping with the disease. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and large glasses. Think biker chic meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. She is sharp-witted, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I enjoy humor. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ 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 goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt 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. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but then I just marched with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
She is no stranger to illness. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut performing in the stage in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and teenage Jess has joined the female band the group while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
