You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an open book, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was preparing for an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands 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 concerning she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after years away and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you are wheeled, but this time I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to physical challenges. Frequently they align with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to highlight not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career starring in the West End in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward several years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
