You can’t imagine it, the singer states. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an open book, tackling every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time living with the disease. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and large glasses. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show next year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I often tease the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was getting ready for an performance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘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 informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful 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 frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. During crises you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
She is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in health crises. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her childhood, already starting her career starring in the West End in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Wow, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
