You can’t imagine it, the singer says. At that moment readying for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, her latest release, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with her cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and big frames. Picture motorcycle style 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 film. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Cornish is sharp-witted, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
She was planning an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing 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 join the call expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They lead you. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but then I just strolled down with a gown on and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal four months ago and my affected breast now appears as a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to highlight not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut starring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
