You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, her latest release, was meant as an open book, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while at the same time living with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and oversized specs. Think motorcycle style meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show next year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was planning an performance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have indicated malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal recently and my affected breast now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has often paired with achievements for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already making her debut featuring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
