You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an candid account, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Later next release, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time living with the disease. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting 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. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Jessie is quick, bold and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show next year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an test, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after a long hiatus and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but then I just marched with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now appears as a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ 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 youth, already beginning performing in the West End in the production (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
