You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. At that moment readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Then in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time living with her cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and oversized specs. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Cornish is sharp-witted, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy recently and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already beginning 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 medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
