You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. There she was preparing for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, birth name J. Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an open book, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while still secretly dealing with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and large glasses. Imagine rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. 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 often tease the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an slot at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a gown on and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my affected breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is no stranger to illness. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already starting her career starring in the London theater in a musical (she was cast 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 palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and teenage Jess has entered the girl group the group while enrolled in the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
