You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The musician, real name Jess Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The album, her latest release, was supposed to be an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with her cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and big frames. Think rocker vibe meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I basically roast the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was getting ready for an appearance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after a long hiatus and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They lead you. During crises you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened four months ago and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her childhood, already making her debut starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
