You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The LP, her latest release, was supposed to be an transparent story, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while at the same time dealing with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and big frames. Picture motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I frequently joke about the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ 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 convinced herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after a long hiatus and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but now I just walked with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer 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 shock, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her youth, already beginning starring in the stage in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and teenage Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
