You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. At that moment readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an open book, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was thriving, while at the same time coping with breast cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in London. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and oversized specs. Imagine rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was getting ready for an slot at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on 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 the singer had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after eight years without an album and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal four months ago and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut performing in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
