You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. There she was readying for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Then in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name J. Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The album, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and big frames. Think biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is quick, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I basically roast the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was planning an slot at the awards show when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and tingling 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 Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a gown on and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal recently and my affected breast now appears as a odd shape.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with physical challenges. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or shock, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the female band Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
