You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, 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 supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, miscarriage, failed relationships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while at the same time dealing with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut next year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I often tease the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was preparing for an appearance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great 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 fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but then I just walked with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in health crises. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already beginning starring in the London theater in the production (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the trio Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
