You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. At that moment preparing for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The artist, actual name Jess Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, her latest release, was intended as an open book, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while coping with the disease. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Picture biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is sharp-witted, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I often tease the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
She was getting ready for an appearance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded 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 releasing the album after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me 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 believing it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but then I just marched with a hospital gown and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s experienced in health crises. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, acting as a reminder, or shock, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her childhood, already beginning performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and teenage Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
