You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. At that moment readying for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later second single, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with her cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. She is quick, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance soon. “I love making people laugh. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was planning an performance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after a long hiatus and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened a few months back and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in health crises. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has often paired with achievements for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the West End in the production (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the medical problem WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the trio Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
