You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Then in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jess Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The LP, her latest release, was meant as an transparent story, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while coping with her cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and oversized specs. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. She is quick, bold and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
She was planning an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘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.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just marched with a gown on and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened four months ago and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut starring in the stage in the production (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
