You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while at the same time coping with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the film. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show next year. “I like entertaining. During performances I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was planning an performance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she 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 launching this thing after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a medical attire and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Frequently they align with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut featuring in the stage in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a year.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
