You can’t imagine it, the singer says. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jess Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The album, her latest release, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with the disease. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Think biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Jessie is fast-thinking, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I enjoy humor. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an test, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk 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 fine, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have indicated malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my affected breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in health crises. Frequently they align with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already making her debut performing in the stage 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 dizziness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Oi, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
