You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. There she was gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while still secretly dealing 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 “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and large glasses. Think rocker vibe meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I frequently joke about the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
She was preparing for an appearance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after years away and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ The first thing I 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 scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but this time I just marched with a gown on and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened recently and my one side now appears as a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is familiar with health problems. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ 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 takes me back to her childhood, already beginning 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 cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the trio the group while attending the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
