You can’t imagine it, the singer says. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an transparent story, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while still secretly dealing with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, cream boots and large glasses. Think biker chic meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is quick, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. 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 found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but this time I just marched with a medical attire and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened four months ago and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. They have often coincided with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already beginning featuring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
