You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then next release, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while at the same time coping with her cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, cream boots and large glasses. Imagine motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was planning an performance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after a long hiatus and no new music. And she contacted me 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 fine, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but now I just walked with a gown on and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is no stranger to illness. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her childhood, already making her debut performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward several years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
