‘It has pushed me to live more fully’: Jessica Cornish on cancer, comebacks and cracking China

You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Then in March she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.

The musician, real name J. Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an candid account, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while at the same time living with the disease. A month later she went public, and in early July she received surgical treatment.

She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.

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 big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Jessie is quick, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance soon. “I enjoy humor. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an test, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had so much on.

“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘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?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “It’s terrible, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”

The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”

A History of Health Challenges

The singer is no stranger to illness. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to medical emergencies. They have often coincided with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”

She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut performing in the London theater in the production (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse 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 young Jessica has entered the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a year.”

Hey, I say, wait, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees