You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. There she was readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an open book, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time dealing with her cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and oversized specs. Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Jessie is quick, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. During performances I basically roast the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was preparing for an slot at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after years away and an extended break. And the doctor messaged 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 positive, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. 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, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “It’s terrible, but however Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened four months ago and my affected breast now appears as a odd shape.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with physical challenges. They have often coincided with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her youth, already starting her career starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and young Jessica has joined the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a collision 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
