You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. There she was 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, on top of the world. Then in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time living with the disease. A month later she went public, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Jessie is sharp-witted, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I often tease the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal four months ago and my right breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
She is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her youth, already beginning performing in the West End in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has entered the girl group the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
