🔗 Share this article

You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. At that moment readying for her comeback record in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was told she had breast cancer.

The singer-songwriter, actual name Jess Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an open book, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then next release, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with the disease. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.

She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.

We’re at a studio in London. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and large glasses. Think biker chic meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the movie. “They used to call me that!” She grins. She is sharp-witted, bold and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”

Medical Challenges and Discovery

Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.

“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after years away and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened a few months back and my right breast now resembles a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”

The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”

Previous Struggles

Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”

She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut performing in the London theater in the production (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the heart condition WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio the group while enrolled in the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a long period.”

Hey, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees