‘It has pushed me to live more fully’: Jessica Cornish on cancer, comebacks and cracking China

You can’t imagine it, the singer states. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then next release, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with breast cancer. 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 come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.

We meet at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. She is sharp-witted, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I often tease the fans.”

Personal Battles and News

The artist was planning an slot at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.

“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and an extended break. 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 jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘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 considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my one side now appears as a odd shape.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”

The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her chest, she notes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”

Previous Struggles

She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. Frequently they align with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”

She takes me back to her childhood, already making her debut starring in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”

Hey, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees