You can’t imagine it, the singer says. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The artist, actual name Jess Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an open book, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The first single, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while coping with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think motorcycle style meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was getting ready for an slot at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery 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 strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my right breast now appears as a odd shape.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is no stranger to illness. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in health crises. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, acting as a reminder, or blow, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already beginning featuring in the London theater in the production (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group the group while attending the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Oi, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
