You can’t imagine it, the singer states. At that moment readying for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jess Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was planning an appearance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘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 continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened recently and my right breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is no stranger to illness. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to highlight not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already beginning starring in the West End in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has become part of the female band the group while studying at the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
