You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Then in March she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, real name J. Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The album, her latest release, was intended as an candid account, tackling every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The first single, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I often tease the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought 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 fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but then I just marched with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened recently and my one side now resembles a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
She is familiar with health problems. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s used to medical emergencies. Frequently they align with career highs, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her childhood, already starting her career featuring in the West End in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
