You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Then in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, real name Jess Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an open book, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We meet 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. Picture motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was planning an slot at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘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 concerning she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after years away and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but this time I just strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “It’s terrible, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now looks like a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Frequently they align with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to remind her not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio the group while studying at the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
