You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Then in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time dealing with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” look. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. When performing I basically roast the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was getting ready for an slot at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to get cancer 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, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt 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. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but then I just walked with a gown on and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened recently and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
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 medical emergencies. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or shock, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already making her debut performing in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
