You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time coping with her cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Cornish is sharp-witted, bold and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her standup debut next year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I basically roast the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was preparing for an slot at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after eight years without an album 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 join the call expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my one side now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. They have often coincided with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning starring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
