You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. There she was preparing for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, addressing every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The first single, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her standup debut next year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I basically roast the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was preparing for an appearance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my 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 describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after a long hiatus and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘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, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have come back as aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened a few months back and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is familiar with health problems. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut starring in the West End in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and young Jessica has entered the trio the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
