You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. There she was readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The first single, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was talking to press about how she was thriving, while at the same time dealing with her cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” expression. “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…’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine biker chic meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. She is sharp-witted, bold and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her first comedy performance next year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I frequently joke about the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was planning an appearance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have indicated malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened a few months back and my right breast now appears as a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in health crises. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to remind her not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already starting her career featuring in the West End in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness 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 entered the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
