You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. At that moment readying for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in March she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, birth name J. Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then second single, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with her cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and large glasses. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. She is quick, irreverent and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show soon. “I enjoy humor. During performances I basically roast the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was planning an slot at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an scan, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after years away and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They lead you. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal recently and my one side now resembles a odd shape.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
She is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s used to physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to highlight not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her youth, already beginning starring in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
