You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. At that moment readying for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Then in spring she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The musician, actual name J. Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an candid account, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while at the same time dealing with her cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, referencing the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. When performing I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have indicated malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. During crises you are wheeled, but now I just walked 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 lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my one side now appears as a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
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. That’s impolite! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the West End in a musical (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Wow, I say, wait, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
