You can’t imagine it, the singer says. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Then in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The musician, birth name Jess Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with the disease. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the seventies 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 beams. Cornish is quick, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They lead you. During crises you are wheeled, but this time I just walked with a hospital gown and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy recently and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her childhood, already beginning starring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
