You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. There she was gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The artist, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, tackling every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Picture biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, referencing the movie. “They used to call me that!” She grins. She is quick, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and no new music. 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 jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have indicated malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in the production (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and young Jessica has become part of 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 planning to release songs in 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
