You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The musician, actual name Jess Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while at the same time dealing with the disease. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, referencing the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Cornish is quick, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut soon. “I like entertaining. During performances I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was planning an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have shown aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but this time I just marched 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 yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now looks like a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with achievements for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has entered the girl group the group while attending the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
