You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. At that moment readying for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The musician, actual name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, her latest release, was supposed to be an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then next release, Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time coping with the disease. A month later she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and large glasses. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her standup debut next year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ 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, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘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 says, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have indicated malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. During crises you go on a gurney, but then I just walked with a hospital gown and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened a few months back and my one side now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
She is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with achievements for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
