You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jess Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an transparent story, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with the disease. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and oversized specs. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “They used to call me that!” She beams. She is sharp-witted, bold and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after a long hiatus and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. During crises you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a gown on and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s used to medical emergencies. Frequently they align with career highs, acting as a reminder, or shock, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has often paired with achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her youth, already beginning starring in the West End in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band the group while attending the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
