You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. At that moment readying for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The artist, real name Jess Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. 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 worked on songs (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, referencing the picture. “They used to call me that!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was planning an performance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but then I just marched with a gown on and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her chest, she observes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is familiar with health problems. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ 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 reminisces to her youth, already starting her career performing in the West End in a musical (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Oi, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
