You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. There she was readying for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with breast cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Think rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is quick, irreverent and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I often tease the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “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 insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after 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 convinced herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘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 considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but this time I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! It’s funny because 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 no stranger to illness. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has often paired with achievements for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning starring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and young Jessica has joined the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “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 collision and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
