You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. At that moment readying for her comeback record in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then second single, Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” look. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and large glasses. Imagine motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ 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 considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. During crises you are wheeled, but then I just walked with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened four months ago and my one side now appears as a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
She is no stranger to illness. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the West End in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat 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 six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio the group while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
