You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. At that moment readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The first single, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while at the same time living with breast cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if 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 smiles. She is sharp-witted, bold and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after eight years without an album and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened recently and my one side now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to highlight not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the medical problem WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an 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 Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Wow, I say, wait, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
