You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The musician, real name J. Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, broken romances, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The initial release, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while dealing with the disease. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and big frames. Imagine biker chic meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is quick, bold and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance next year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I frequently joke about the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal four months ago and my one side now resembles a odd shape.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in health crises. Frequently they align with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already making her debut performing in the West End in the production (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
