You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. There she was preparing for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an open book, addressing every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, miscarriage, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Jessie is sharp-witted, bold and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I often tease the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was planning an performance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an test, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have come back as aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. During crises you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a hospital gown and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened four months ago and my one side now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is familiar with health problems. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning performing in the West End in the production (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
