You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. There she was readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Then in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and large glasses. Think rocker vibe meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Jessie is quick, irreverent and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I enjoy humor. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
She was planning an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. During crises you are wheeled, but then I just walked with a medical attire and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but however Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal recently and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
She is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut starring in the London theater in a musical (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group the group while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
