You can’t imagine it, the singer says. There she was readying for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then second single, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and oversized specs. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Cornish is quick, bold and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show soon. “I enjoy humor. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was getting ready for an slot at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but now I just walked with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal recently and my one side now resembles a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her youth, already beginning performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and young Jessica has become part of the trio the group while attending 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 the year 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a year.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
