You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. At that moment preparing for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, birth name Jess Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The album, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an candid account, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with breast cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and large glasses. Picture biker chic 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, recalling the film. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Cornish is sharp-witted, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her standup debut soon. “I love making people laugh. When performing I often tease the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was preparing for an slot at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. During crises you are wheeled, but then I just marched with a medical attire and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my one side now resembles a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, acting as a reminder, or shock, to highlight not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already beginning starring in the London theater in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the female band the group while studying at the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
