You can’t imagine it, the singer states. At that moment readying for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Then in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Then next release, 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 coping with the disease. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 70s 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 blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I often tease the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was preparing for an slot at the awards show when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal 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 both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward six years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
