You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Then in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, birth name Jess Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The LP, her latest release, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show soon. “I enjoy humor. When performing I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an slot at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. Frequently they align with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has often paired with high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut starring in the London theater in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
