You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jess Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The record, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an candid account, tackling every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time coping with breast cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, beige footwear and oversized specs. Picture biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was planning an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but now I just strolled down with a gown on and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is no stranger to illness. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Frequently they align with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career starring in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
