You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. There she was preparing for her comeback record in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, birth name J. Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an open book, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while at the same time coping with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and large glasses. Picture biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Cornish is quick, bold and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut soon. “I like entertaining. During performances I often tease the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after years away and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful 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. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s used to medical emergencies. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her youth, already starting her career performing in the West End in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group the group while studying at the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
