You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while still secretly coping with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was preparing for an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an scan, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have shown malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought 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 viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They lead you. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but then I just marched with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my one side now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis 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 shock, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her youth, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in the production (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the medical problem WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has entered the trio the group while attending the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
