You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. There she was preparing for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, birth name J. Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The record, her latest release, was meant as an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and large glasses. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Jessie is sharp-witted, bold and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance soon. “I enjoy humor. During performances I basically roast the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was planning an performance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a gown on and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Frequently they align with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
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 chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”
Wow, I say, wait, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
