You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The musician, real name J. Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an candid account, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with her cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, beige footwear and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her standup debut in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an slot at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ 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 concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “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 found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just walked with a gown on and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened four months ago and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is familiar with health problems. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already starting her career starring in the West End in a musical (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Oi, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
