🔗 Share this article

You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. There she was preparing for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.

The musician, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, her latest release, was supposed to be an candid account, addressing every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The initial release, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while still secretly dealing with the disease. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.

She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.

We’re at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I frequently joke about the audience.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

Cornish was getting ready for an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘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 contact on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.

“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “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 viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but this time I just strolled down with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened a few months back and my affected breast now appears as a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”

Past Medical Issues

The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Frequently they align with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”

She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in the production (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a year.”

Hey, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees