You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then next release, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while at the same time dealing with breast cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” look. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I often tease the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was getting ready for an slot at the awards show when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have shown aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but then I just marched with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now resembles a odd shape.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her youth, already starting her career performing in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the heart condition WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and young Jessica has joined the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees