You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, real name Jess Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an transparent story, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Imagine motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the film. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I often tease the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
She was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have shown aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “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 found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my one side now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or shock, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her youth, already beginning performing in the stage in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the trio the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
