You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. There she was gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Then in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The musician, birth name Jess Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The LP, her latest release, was supposed to be an candid account, tackling every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The lead track, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while coping with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Picture motorcycle style meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is quick, bold and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. During performances I often tease the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘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 bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases 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, she notes, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my affected breast now resembles a odd shape.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the stage in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward several years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a year.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
