You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. There she was gearing up for her new album launch 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 ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name Jess Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with the disease. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the film. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Jessie is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her standup debut soon. “I love making people laugh. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after 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 explains it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but then I just marched with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal recently and my one side now appears as a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, 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 ideal. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Frequently they align with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, 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 happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already starting her career performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and teenage Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Hey, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
