You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Later next release, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with breast cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and big frames. Picture biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is sharp-witted, bold and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was planning an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after a long hiatus and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have indicated malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. During crises you go on a gurney, but then I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal recently and my right breast now resembles a odd shape.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her chest, she observes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is no stranger to illness. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Frequently they align with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her childhood, already starting her career performing in the West End in a musical (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the medical problem WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio the group while attending the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
