You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with breast cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and large glasses. Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the film. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Cornish is quick, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
She was getting ready for an appearance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an test, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have indicated malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a gown on and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my right breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s used to physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already starting her career performing in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem WPW, 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 being readmitted at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
