You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. At that moment readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Then in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, real name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then second single, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with the disease. Four weeks after she went public, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and big frames. Imagine motorcycle style meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Jessie is fast-thinking, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was planning an performance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after a long hiatus and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but now I just walked with a medical attire and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her youth, already beginning performing in the London theater in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward six years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Wow, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
