You can’t imagine it, the singer says. There she was preparing for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Then in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, real name Jess Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Then next release, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while still secretly coping with her cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, 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 partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut next year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I often tease the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was planning an appearance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do 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 Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ 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, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. During crises you are wheeled, but then I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with achievements for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already beginning starring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, wait, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
