You can’t imagine it, the singer says. There she was gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The musician, birth name J. Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The album, her latest release, was supposed to be an open book, addressing every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, miscarriage, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly dealing with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish 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 sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine rocker vibe meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Cornish is quick, bold and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I often tease the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was preparing for an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to face illness 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 she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘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 scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal recently and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is no stranger to illness. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already beginning featuring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio the group while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
