You can’t imagine it, the singer says. At that moment readying for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while coping with the disease. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and oversized specs. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. She is quick, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was planning an slot at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation 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 now I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened a few months back and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
