You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. There she was readying for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an open book, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with the disease. A month later she shared the news, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I basically roast the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was planning an slot at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after years away and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you are wheeled, but this time I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her chest, she remarks, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is no stranger to illness. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in health crises. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already making her debut featuring in the stage in a musical (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 vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
