You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The artist, real name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an transparent story, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while at the same time living with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is quick, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show soon. “I love making people laugh. During performances I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was planning an performance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an test, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a gown on and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my affected breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is familiar with health problems. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. Frequently they align with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her youth, already beginning performing in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and young Jessica has joined the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
