You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The musician, birth name Jess Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an transparent story, addressing every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The initial release, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Cornish is quick, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance soon. “I enjoy humor. When performing I often tease the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but then I just walked with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the West End in the production (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the female band the group while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
