You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. There she was gearing up for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, her latest release, was intended as an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The first single, the song No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” look. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and big frames. Picture biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Jessie is quick, bold and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut soon. “I love making people laugh. When performing I often tease the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They lead you. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but then I just marched with a gown on and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal four months ago and my affected breast now appears as a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, 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 obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is no stranger to illness. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning starring in the stage in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band the group while attending the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
