You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Then in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The artist, actual name Jess Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with breast cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and oversized specs. Picture biker chic 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, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her standup debut next year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I often tease the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
She was getting ready for an slot at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was 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 she had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They lead you. During crises you roll down in a bed, but then I just marched with a gown on and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my one side now resembles a odd shape.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with physical challenges. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already starting her career performing in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio the group while studying at the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Hey, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
