🔗 Share this article

You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. There she was preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Then in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.

The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with the disease. A month later she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.

She shoots me her best “Seriously?” look. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they ask, ‘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.

Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and large glasses. Think motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the audience.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had so much on.

“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just marched with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal recently and my affected breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”

The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”

Previous Struggles

Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”

She recalls to her childhood, already making her debut starring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”

Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees