You can’t imagine it, the singer states. There she was preparing for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The musician, birth name J. Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while still secretly coping with breast cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and big frames. Think biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I enjoy humor. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought 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 considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened a few months back and my affected breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s used to physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her youth, already beginning featuring in the London theater in the production (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, wait, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
