You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. At that moment readying for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, failed relationships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Picture rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Jessie is sharp-witted, irreverent and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show next year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was getting ready for an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you are wheeled, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s used to health crises. Frequently they align with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her youth, already beginning starring in the stage in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and young Jessica has become part of the trio Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
