You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. At that moment preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Then in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, birth name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The LP, her latest release, was supposed to be an transparent story, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, miscarriage, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The first single, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with the disease. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Imagine biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Jessie is sharp-witted, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was getting ready for an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after a long hiatus and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened recently and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or shock, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut performing in the stage in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the heart condition WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, 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. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
