You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an transparent story, addressing every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time dealing with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Picture biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I frequently joke about the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was preparing for an slot at the awards show when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an test, and they said, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after years away and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened four months ago and my affected breast now appears as a odd shape.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already beginning starring in the stage in the production (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in 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 collision and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
