You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. There she was readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The musician, real name Jess Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time living with the disease. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, beige footwear and big frames. Imagine biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut soon. “I love making people laugh. On stage I often tease the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was preparing for an slot at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. During crises you are wheeled, but now I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened a few months back and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
She is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her youth, already beginning performing in the stage in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash 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
