You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. She is sharp-witted, bold and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I often tease the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a gown on and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened recently and my one side now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut starring in the stage in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the medical problem WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently 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 attending the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
