You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. There she was readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an candid account, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, miscarriage, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while living with the disease. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Think biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show next year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I basically roast the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced 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 debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have indicated malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is familiar with health problems. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already beginning featuring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while studying at 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 couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
