You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Then in spring she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was meant as an candid account, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Then next release, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time dealing with her cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Think biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was planning an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after years away and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt 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 considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. During crises you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my affected breast now looks like a odd shape.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is no stranger to illness. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s used to physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut starring in the West End in a musical (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the medical problem WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and teenage Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
