You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, actual name Jess Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The first single, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later second single, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with the disease. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and big frames. Think rocker vibe 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, referencing the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ 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 good, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have indicated malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I 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 hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but this time I just marched with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my one side now resembles a odd shape.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already making her debut performing in the stage in the production (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Oi, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
