You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then next release, Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with her cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Think biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is sharp-witted, irreverent and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance soon. “I enjoy humor. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was planning an performance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but this time I just strolled down with a gown on and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my affected breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already starting her career performing in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the girl group the group while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
