You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, actual name Jess Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an candid account, tackling every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then next release, Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while dealing with the disease. Four weeks after she went public, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and large glasses. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Cornish is quick, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show soon. “I like entertaining. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album and no new music. 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 jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened recently and my one side now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already making her debut starring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
