You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. There she was readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The initial release, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later next release, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with the disease. A month later she shared the news, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Cornish is quick, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show next year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was planning an slot at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but now I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has often paired with achievements for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the medical problem WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo 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 six years, and young Jessica has joined the female band Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
