You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Then in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The artist, real name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, miscarriage, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while coping with her cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the film. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis 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 the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ 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 continues, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt 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 viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They walk you down. During crises you are wheeled, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “It’s terrible, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is no stranger to illness. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Frequently they align with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her youth, already beginning performing in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with 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 drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
