You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. At that moment readying for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jess Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, miscarriage, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while still secretly coping with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and large glasses. Picture biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Cornish is sharp-witted, bold and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her initial standup show soon. “I love making people laugh. On stage I frequently joke about the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
She was getting ready for an performance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but then I just strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened a few months back and my one side now appears as a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
She is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s used to medical emergencies. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with achievements for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her youth, already starting her career performing in the London theater in the production (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and teenage Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
