You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, birth name Jess Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly dealing with her cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and big frames. Imagine motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already making her debut performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has joined the girl group the group while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
