You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. There she was readying for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Then in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, addressing every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and oversized specs. Think biker chic 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, referencing the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after years away and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘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 found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. During crises you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my one side now appears as a odd shape.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is no stranger to illness. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her youth, already starting her career performing in the stage in a musical (she was cast at the age of 9). 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 was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and young Jessica has become part of the girl group 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 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
