You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. There she was preparing for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The artist, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The album, her latest release, was intended as an candid account, addressing every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her initial standup show next year. “I like entertaining. During performances I basically roast the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after a long hiatus and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ 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 good, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a gown on and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened a few months back and my one side now resembles a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Ironically 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.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is no stranger to illness. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and teenage Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
