You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. There she was gearing up for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Then in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, actual name Jess Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later next release, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and oversized specs. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. She is sharp-witted, bold and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance soon. “I love making people laugh. On stage I frequently joke about the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project 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, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but this time I just walked with a medical attire and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my one side now looks like a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Ironically 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 accustomed to medical issues. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her childhood, already starting her career starring in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward six years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
