You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The musician, real name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with characteristic openness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later next release, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time living with her cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and large glasses. Think biker chic meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance next year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was preparing for an slot at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have shown malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but this time I just walked with a gown on and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Frequently they align with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already beginning performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
