You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, her latest release, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly coping with breast cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and big frames. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her initial standup show soon. “I enjoy humor. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was planning an slot at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. During crises you roll down in a bed, but then I just strolled down with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal four months ago and my one side now appears as a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied 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 featuring in the West End in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the trio the group while studying at the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Wow, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
