You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with the disease. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and large glasses. Picture biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. She is sharp-witted, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was planning an slot at the awards show when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They walk you down. During crises you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but however Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened a few months back and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is no stranger to illness. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in health crises. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has often paired with moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already beginning starring in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
