You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The artist, birth name Jess Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The LP, her latest release, was intended as an candid account, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The lead track, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then second single, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Think biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is sharp-witted, irreverent and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut next year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I basically roast the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
She was getting ready for an appearance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after years away and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a gown on and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already beginning performing in the West End in the production (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
