‘It has taught me to embrace life more’: Jessica Cornish on cancer, career returns and cracking China

You can’t imagine it, the singer states. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.

The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The album, her latest release, was intended as an open book, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while at the same time coping with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, and in early July she received surgical treatment.

She gives me her best “Seriously?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.

We’re at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the crowd.”

Medical Challenges and Discovery

The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.

“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘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.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but then I just marched with a gown on and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”

A History of Health Challenges

Cornish is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”

She reminisces to her youth, already beginning performing in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”

Wow, I say, hold on, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees