You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. There she was preparing for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, miscarriage, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly dealing with the disease. Subsequently she went public, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and big frames. Picture biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an slot at the awards show when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. 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 jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have shown malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but then I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened recently and my affected breast now looks like a odd shape.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
She is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. They have often coincided with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her youth, already starting her career featuring in the stage in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band the group while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Hey, I say, wait, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
