You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. There she was preparing for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, her latest release, was meant as an open book, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then next release, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while dealing with the disease. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and large glasses. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, bold and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was planning an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free 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?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but this time I just marched with a gown on and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but however Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now appears as a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and teenage Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
