You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time coping with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and big frames. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is quick, bold and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance soon. “I love making people laugh. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was planning an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. 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 considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but this time I just marched with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened recently and my one side now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut starring in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
