You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. There she was preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Then in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The musician, actual 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 transparent story, tackling every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, broken romances, 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 illness. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with her cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and oversized specs. Imagine motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is sharp-witted, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was preparing for an slot at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “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 responded, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after a long hiatus and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have indicated malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but this time I just walked with a medical attire and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is no stranger to illness. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut starring in the stage in the production (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group the group while studying at the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
