You can’t imagine it, the singer states. There she was preparing for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, real name J. Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then second single, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Jessie is fast-thinking, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was planning an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after a long hiatus and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but this time I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Oi, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
