You can’t imagine it, the singer says. There she was readying for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Then in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The artist, actual name Jess Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an candid account, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometriosis, miscarriage, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then next release, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while at the same time coping with her cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Picture motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Jessie is sharp-witted, bold and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her standup debut in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I frequently joke about the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
She was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but then I just marched with a gown on and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened four months ago and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is no stranger to illness. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Frequently they align with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career performing in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo 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 entered the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts 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 automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
