You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. At that moment preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, actual name J. Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The first single, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while living with her cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. She is quick, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her standup debut soon. “I love making people laugh. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
She was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after a long hiatus and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ 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 informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my one side now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s experienced in health crises. Frequently they align with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the stage in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
