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

You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.

The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with breast cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.

She shoots me her best “Seriously?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.

We meet at a studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and big frames. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

Cornish was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.

“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after eight years without an album 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 log in thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now 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 lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”

The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”

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 professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ 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 featuring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group the group while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”

Hey, I say, wait, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees