You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. There she was gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an open book, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time coping with the disease. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and big frames. Picture motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is quick, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show next year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I basically roast the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after 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 she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after eight years without an album and an extended break. And the doctor messaged 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 thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened four months ago and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s experienced in health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to remind her not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). 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 IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Wow, I say, wait, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
