You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. There she was preparing for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The musician, actual name J. Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and big frames. Imagine biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Cornish is quick, bold and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. When performing I often tease the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but then I just walked with a gown on and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “It’s terrible, but however Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my affected breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, 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 perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in the production (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has joined the trio the group while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
