You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time living with her cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and large glasses. Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, referencing the picture. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Jessie is quick, bold and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They lead you. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but however Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened recently and my one side now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is no stranger to illness. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her youth, already starting her career performing in the London theater in the production (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
