You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The musician, birth name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an open book, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later second single, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while dealing with the disease. A month later she went public, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, cream boots and oversized specs. Imagine motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the film. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Cornish is sharp-witted, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was planning an performance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an scan, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had assured herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after a long hiatus and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just walked with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “It’s terrible, but however Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal four months ago and my right breast now appears as a odd shape.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! 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 perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
She is familiar with health problems. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already making her debut starring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and palpitations. “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 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Wow, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
