You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. There she was readying for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with typical candour. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time dealing with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and oversized specs. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Cornish is sharp-witted, bold and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was planning an slot at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have indicated malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but this time I just walked with a medical attire and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal four months ago and my affected breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and teenage Jess has entered the trio the group while attending the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
