You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. There she was readying for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Later next release, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly coping with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her initial standup show soon. “I love making people laugh. On stage I basically roast the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was planning an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after a long hiatus and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you are wheeled, but now I just walked with a gown on and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “It’s terrible, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my one side now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is familiar with health problems. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. Frequently they align with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or shock, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and young Jessica has become part of the trio Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
