You can’t imagine it, the singer says. There she was readying for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Then in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jess Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Think rocker vibe meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is quick, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show next year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I often tease the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was preparing for an slot at the awards show when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my one side now resembles a odd shape.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut featuring in the West End in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Wow, I say, wait, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
