You can’t imagine it, the singer says. There she was preparing for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, broken romances, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The initial release, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with breast cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her initial standup show soon. “I like entertaining. When performing I basically roast the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘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 bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after a long hiatus and four years without a single. 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 log in expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my one side now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s used to physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut performing in the London theater in the production (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
