You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. There she was readying for her comeback record in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The artist, birth name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The initial release, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then next release, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly coping with her cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We’re at a studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Jessie is sharp-witted, bold and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I frequently joke about the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. During crises you are wheeled, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened recently and my one side now resembles a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, why make it worse, 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 flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Frequently they align with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut performing in the London theater in the production (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
