You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. There she was preparing for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Then in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly dealing with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We’re at a studio in London. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and large glasses. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. She is sharp-witted, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her initial standup show 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 discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt 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 terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a gown on and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened a few months back and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, no need to bully me, 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 perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her childhood, already starting her career performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “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 collision and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
