You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. At that moment preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Then in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The artist, birth name Jess Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an candid account, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, miscarriage, failed relationships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and oversized specs. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the film. “They used to call me that!” She beams. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I basically roast the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but then I just strolled down with a gown on and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal recently and my affected breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Frequently they align with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut starring in the West End in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and young Jessica has joined the trio Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Hey, I say, wait, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
