You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. There she was preparing for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Then in March she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The artist, actual name Jess Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, tackling every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while at the same time coping with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and large glasses. Think motorcycle style meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, bold and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I basically roast the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but this time I just walked with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my one side now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Frequently they align with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already making her debut performing in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the heart condition WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has become part of the trio the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music 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. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
