You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The album, her latest release, was supposed to be an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and oversized specs. Think motorcycle style meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Jessie is sharp-witted, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her first comedy performance next year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
She was getting ready for an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They lead you. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened a few months back and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and teenage Jess has joined the female band the group while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
