You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Then in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The musician, real name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with typical candour. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time coping with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. She is quick, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I love making people laugh. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was preparing for an slot at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an test, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ 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 serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial 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. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened a few months back and my affected breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her youth, already starting her career performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected 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 lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
