‘It has made me live life more’: Jessica Cornish on her health battle, career returns and conquering the Chinese market

You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. At that moment preparing for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.

The artist, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an open book, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The first single, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time dealing with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.

She shoots me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.

We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Jessie is sharp-witted, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her standup debut next year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I basically roast the audience.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

She was getting ready for an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had assured herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.

“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have come back as malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but then I just strolled down with a gown on and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my affected breast now appears as a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The next operation is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”

Previous Struggles

The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Frequently they align with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”

She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut starring in the West End in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals 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 the group while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a long period.”

Oi, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees