You can’t imagine it, the singer states. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an open book, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in London. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was getting ready for an slot at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but this time I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my right breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
She is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to medical emergencies. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already beginning featuring in the West End in the production (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
