You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. There she was readying for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Then in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name J. Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an candid account, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later second single, Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is sharp-witted, bold and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was planning an slot at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. 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 Friday. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after eight years without an album and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened recently and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut starring in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the trio the group while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
