You can’t imagine it, the singer says. There she was preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Then in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The artist, real name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an open book, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was talking to press about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the picture. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. She is quick, bold and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have indicated aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but then I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already beginning performing in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
