You can’t imagine it, the singer states. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The artist, real name J. Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then next release, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was talking to press about how she was thriving, while all the while living with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and oversized specs. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. She is quick, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut soon. “I love making people laugh. When performing I basically roast the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was getting ready for an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had assured herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her chest, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s used to health crises. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her childhood, already making her debut performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
