You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. At that moment readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an open book, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly dealing with breast cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in London. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and large glasses. Picture motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, 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. When performing I frequently joke about the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was preparing for an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after years away and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have shown malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but then I just walked with a gown on and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my one side now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her chest, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already starting her career performing in the West End in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
