You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Then in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name J. Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The LP, her latest release, was intended as an open book, addressing every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with the disease. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and oversized specs. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, referencing the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is sharp-witted, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her standup debut next year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an slot at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an test, and they said, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have shown 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 have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but this time I just marched with a medical attire and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my affected breast now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her youth, already starting her career starring in the London theater in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the trio the group while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
