You can’t imagine it, the singer states. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, real name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an open book, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later next release, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and large glasses. Picture rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but now I just strolled down with a gown on and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in the production (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 dizziness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
