You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, her latest release, was intended as an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later next release, Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while at the same time coping with the disease. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in London. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and oversized specs. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Jessie is quick, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I often tease the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ 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 fear going under. They lead you. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but then I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now resembles a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is no stranger to illness. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Frequently they align with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career starring in the West End in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Wow, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
