You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. At that moment readying for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The musician, birth name J. Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with ornate white designs, beige footwear and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Jessie is quick, bold and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her standup debut soon. “I enjoy humor. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt 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 considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. During crises you are wheeled, but then I just strolled down with a gown on and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “It’s terrible, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she observes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is no stranger to illness. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in health crises. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already making her debut starring in the London theater in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees