You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. There she was readying for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Then in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The artist, real name J. Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with breast cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Jessie is sharp-witted, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I often tease the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but this time I just marched with a gown on and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or shock, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has entered the trio the group while attending the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
