You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Then in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jess Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while dealing with her cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Imagine motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the film. “They used to call me that!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her standup debut soon. “I love making people laugh. When performing I often tease the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was planning an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a gown on and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but however Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened recently and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to remind her not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group the group while studying at the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
