You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Then in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, tackling every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then next release, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly dealing with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and large glasses. Picture motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is quick, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was planning an appearance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was inopportune 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 she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They lead you. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but this time I just walked with a gown on and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal recently and my one side now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has often paired with achievements for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her youth, already beginning featuring in the London theater in the production (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 fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and teenage Jess has entered the female band the group while attending the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
