You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. There she was readying for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later next release, Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and oversized specs. Picture motorcycle style 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, referencing the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I love making people laugh. During performances I often tease the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was planning an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ 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 good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but then I just marched with a gown on and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or shock, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and young Jessica has joined the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Hey, I say, wait, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
