You can’t imagine it, the singer states. There she was gearing up for her new album launch 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, riding high. Then in spring she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The musician, actual name Jess Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d endured since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly coping with her cancer. A month later she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an slot at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ My initial 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 considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They lead you. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but now I just walked with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my affected breast now looks like a odd shape.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s used to physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut performing in the London theater in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group the group while attending the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Wow, I say, wait, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
