You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. There she was readying for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The musician, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The LP, her latest release, was supposed to be an transparent story, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with her cancer. A month later she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in London. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Jessie is sharp-witted, bold and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I often tease the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was getting ready for an slot at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but then I just strolled down with a gown on and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “It’s terrible, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
She is no stranger to illness. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied achievements 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 9). That’s when she was told about the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Oi, I say, wait, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
