You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. There she was readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, birth name Jess Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an transparent story, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The first single, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with the disease. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a studio in London. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Imagine motorcycle style meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut next year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted 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 positive, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ 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 replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs 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 fear going under. They lead you. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened recently and my affected breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already beginning featuring in the stage in the production (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 dizziness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
