You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. There she was preparing for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jess Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, her latest release, was supposed to be an transparent story, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then next release, Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while coping with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and large glasses. Imagine biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is sharp-witted, bold and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I often tease the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
She was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk 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 positive, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but this time I just walked with a gown on and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my affected breast now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut performing in the West End in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat 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 skips forward several years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
