You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. At that moment readying 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, riding high. Then in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an open book, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last made an album (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The initial release, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time 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 “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and large glasses. Picture motorcycle style meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Jessie is quick, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. During performances I often tease the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
She was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have shown aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now appears as a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s used to medical emergencies. Frequently they align with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has often paired with high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already beginning performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
