You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The musician, real name J. Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The record, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an candid account, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The first single, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly dealing with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and oversized specs. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
She was getting ready for an slot at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought 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 considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. During crises you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a gown on and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened a few months back and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already making her debut starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
