You can’t imagine it, the singer states. There she was gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Then in March she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, real name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then next release, Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while at the same time living with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and big frames. Picture motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the film. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Cornish is quick, bold and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an test, and they said, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career performing in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the heart condition WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
