You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The record, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then next release, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with breast cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance next year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I often tease the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
She was planning an performance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but then I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. 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 a few months back and my one side now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. 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 flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to highlight not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
