You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. There she was gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Then in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The album, her latest release, was supposed to be an candid account, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while still secretly dealing with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was getting ready for an appearance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. During crises you are wheeled, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “It’s terrible, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal four months ago and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is no stranger to illness. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her youth, already making her debut starring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
