You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The musician, birth name Jess Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The LP, her latest release, was meant as an candid account, addressing every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The first single, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was thriving, while at the same time dealing with her cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and large glasses. Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Jessie is fast-thinking, bold and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was planning an slot at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain 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 specialist told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after years away and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but then I just strolled down with a gown on and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already starting her career performing in the West End in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
