You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The artist, real name J. Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The LP, her latest release, was supposed to be an candid account, tackling every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while at the same time coping with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, cream boots and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her standup debut in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal four months ago and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! It’s funny because 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.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is familiar with health problems. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Frequently they align with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her youth, already starting her career performing in the stage in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while attending 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 twelve months.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
