You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The artist, birth name Jess Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an candid account, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time living with her cancer. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Jessie is fast-thinking, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ 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 considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but this time I just marched with a medical attire and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “It’s terrible, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her youth, already starting her career starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the female band the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
