You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. There she was gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Then in March she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, real name Jess Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an open book, tackling every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while still secretly dealing with the disease. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a studio in London. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut soon. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was planning an slot at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a gown on and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now looks like a odd shape.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is no stranger to illness. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already making her debut starring in the stage in the production (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in 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 throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
