You can’t imagine it, the singer says. At that moment readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Then in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later next release, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while at the same time dealing with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and large glasses. Picture rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is sharp-witted, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I often tease the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was preparing for an slot at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but now I just walked with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now appears as a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
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 selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
