You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, on top of the world. Then in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The LP, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with the disease. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Think rocker vibe meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after years away and an extended break. 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 fine, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I felt, 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 ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut starring in the West End in the production (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and teenage Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Wow, I say, wait, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
