You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. There she was preparing for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jess Cornish, is renowned 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 faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly dealing with the disease. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and oversized specs. Picture motorcycle style meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is sharp-witted, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut soon. “I like entertaining. When performing I often tease the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after a long hiatus and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but then I just marched with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal four months ago and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the stage in a musical (she was selected 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 lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has joined the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
