You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. There she was preparing for her comeback record in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, real name Jess Cornish, is renowned 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 bit of hardship she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometriosis, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time coping with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Picture biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She grins. She is quick, bold and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I often tease the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an scan, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but this time I just strolled down with a medical attire and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “different sizes. 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. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning starring in the stage in the production (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band the group while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
