You can’t imagine it, the singer says. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, her latest release, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later next release, Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while still secretly coping with her cancer. A month later she went public, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was preparing for an slot at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after a long hiatus and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ 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 positive, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have indicated malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. During crises you are wheeled, but then I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but however Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened recently and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “uneven. 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. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
She is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s experienced in health crises. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and teenage Jess has joined the female band the group while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
