You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. At that moment readying for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Then in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an candid account, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time coping with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and large glasses. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. She is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was planning an performance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. During crises you are wheeled, but this time I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right breast now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s used to physical challenges. They have often coincided with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her youth, already beginning featuring in the West End in the production (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
