You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The musician, real name J. Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The LP, her latest release, was meant as an open book, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and big frames. Picture motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is sharp-witted, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her standup debut soon. “I like entertaining. During performances I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an slot at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had many commitments.
“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, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but this time I just walked with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened recently and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is no stranger to illness. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her childhood, already making her debut performing in the stage in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
