You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. At that moment readying for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica 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, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish 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 beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Picture motorcycle style meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is quick, bold and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
She was preparing for an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was okay. 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 eight years without an album and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my one side now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Frequently they align with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut performing in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and young Jessica has entered the female band Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
