You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. At that moment readying for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The artist, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an candid account, tackling every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is quick, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her standup debut in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I frequently joke about the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was preparing for an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after eight years without an album and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but this time I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right breast now resembles a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career performing in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the trio the group while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, wait, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
