You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. At that moment readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while dealing with her cancer. A month later she went public, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Picture biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. She is sharp-witted, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I often tease the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have come back as aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but this time I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my affected breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is no stranger to illness. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s familiar with health crises. Frequently they align with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
