You can’t imagine it, the singer says. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The artist, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was meant as an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The first single, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time coping with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to postpone shows 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, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. She is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut next year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my affected breast now resembles a odd shape.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already starting her career performing in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Oi, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
