You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. At that moment readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The artist, birth name Jess Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while at the same time coping with the disease. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and large glasses. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Jessie is quick, bold and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her standup debut soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
She was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album and four years without a single. 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 believing it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought 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 considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but this time I just strolled down with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my one side now resembles a odd shape.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
She is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Frequently they align with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already beginning performing in the West End in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and young Jessica has joined the trio the group while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Oi, I say, wait, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
