You can’t imagine it, the singer says. At that moment readying for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The musician, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with the disease. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a studio in London. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and oversized specs. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her standup debut next year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I basically roast the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after a long hiatus and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have indicated malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. During crises you roll down in a bed, but now I just walked with a gown on and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but however Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened four months ago and my one side now resembles a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or blow, to highlight not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the girl group the group while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
