You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. At that moment readying for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, her latest release, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while at the same time living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a studio in London. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and large glasses. Picture rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after years away and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened recently and my right breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is no stranger to illness. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to remind her not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already beginning performing in the West End in the production (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of 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 ready to debut in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
