You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. There she was readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, actual name J. Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was supposed to be an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and large glasses. Picture rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. She is sharp-witted, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened recently and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s used to physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already starting her career featuring in the stage in the production (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
