You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Then in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jessica Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an open book, addressing every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was thriving, while all the while dealing with her cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Picture motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was preparing for an slot at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened a few months back and my one side now appears as a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is familiar with health problems. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already starting her career performing in the stage in the production (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Oi, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
