You can’t imagine it, the singer states. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Then in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, actual name J. Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The lead track, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with the disease. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and big frames. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. She is sharp-witted, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was getting ready for an slot at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. 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 found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but this time I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is no stranger to illness. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her youth, already making her debut performing in the West End 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 tachycardia as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has joined the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
