You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time coping with her cancer. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and large glasses. Think biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. She is quick, irreverent and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her standup debut soon. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was getting ready for an slot at the awards show when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after eight years without an album and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘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, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ 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 considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They lead you. During crises you roll down in a bed, but then I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened recently and my affected breast now resembles a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! 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
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her youth, already making her debut performing in the West End in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
