You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. At that moment readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an transparent story, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, 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 living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and big frames. Imagine biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Jessie is quick, irreverent and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was getting ready for an slot at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now appears as a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
She is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. 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 was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
