You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, on top of the world. Then in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, birth name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The first single, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with her cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or shock, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already making her debut performing in the stage in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
