You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was talking to press about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with her cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she 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 dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and big frames. Think biker chic meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was planning an performance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but now I just walked with a hospital gown and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened four months ago and my one side now resembles a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to physical challenges. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or shock, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already starting her career featuring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the female band the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
