🔗 Share this article

You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. At that moment readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.

The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an candid account, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The first single, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while at the same time dealing with the disease. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.

She offers me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.

We meet at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and large glasses. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the film. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Jessie is sharp-witted, bold and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

Cornish was planning an appearance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had a busy schedule.

“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be fine, 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 shown malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened a few months back and my affected breast now appears as 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 chest, she observes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”

Past Medical Issues

Cornish is familiar with health problems. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”

She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the West End in the production (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and young Jessica has entered the trio Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”

Oi, I say, wait, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees