You can’t imagine it, the singer states. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while at the same time living with the disease. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Cornish is quick, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I frequently joke about the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
She was getting ready for an slot at the awards show when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after eight years without an album and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. During crises you are wheeled, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal recently and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the trio the group while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
