You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. There she was preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, miscarriage, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and large glasses. Picture motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. She is quick, bold and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was planning an performance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an test, and they said, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ 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 specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. During crises you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a gown on and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my one side now looks like a odd shape.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to physical challenges. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or shock, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with high points for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and teenage Jess has entered the trio the group while attending the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
