You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. At that moment readying 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 dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Then in spring she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, birth name J. Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an open book, tackling every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The first single, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then next release, Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly coping with her cancer. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and big frames. Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her initial standup show in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
She was preparing for an appearance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after a long hiatus and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you are wheeled, but then I just marched with a gown on and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my one side 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 chest, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
She is no stranger to illness. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s used to medical emergencies. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or shock, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her youth, already beginning featuring in the West End in the production (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
