You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. There she was preparing for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an open book, addressing every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with her cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and oversized specs. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was getting ready for an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. During crises you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but however Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened recently and my one side now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in health crises. Frequently they align with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to remind her not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already beginning performing in the stage in the production (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and young Jessica has entered the trio the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, wait, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
