You can’t imagine it, the singer says. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, tackling every moment of pain she’d endured since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” look. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her standup debut soon. “I enjoy humor. On stage I basically roast the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was preparing for an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but then I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! It’s funny because 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
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with achievements for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career starring in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group the group while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
