🔗 Share this article

You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. At that moment readying for her comeback record in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while at the same time dealing with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.

She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.

We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Jessie is sharp-witted, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show soon. “I love making people laugh. On stage I basically roast the fans.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

Cornish was planning an performance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had a busy schedule.

“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but then I just walked with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my one side now looks like a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”

The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”

A History of Health Challenges

Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, 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 childhood, already making her debut performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and young Jessica has joined the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”

Wow, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees