You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, broken romances, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly dealing with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the picture. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Cornish is quick, bold and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an slot at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after eight years without an album and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but then I just walked with a medical attire and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her chest, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or shock, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career starring in the stage in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
