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

You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. There she was readying for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Then in March she was told she had breast cancer.

The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was intended as an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with the disease. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.

She offers me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.

We’re at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I basically roast the audience.”

Personal Battles and News

Cornish was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.

“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after a long hiatus and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘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 says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”

Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am

She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. During crises you go on a gurney, but then I just walked with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”

The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”

Past Medical Issues

Cornish is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or shock, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with achievements for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”

She recalls to her youth, already beginning starring in the stage in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the girl group the group while attending the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”

Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees