You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, real name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The record, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and oversized specs. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. She is quick, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. During performances I often tease the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was planning an appearance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? 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 recalls to her youth, already starting her career starring in the stage in a musical (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees