You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while coping with breast cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. She is quick, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I often tease the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was getting ready for an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a gown on and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened recently and my affected breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is no stranger to illness. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already beginning starring in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward six years, and young Jessica has entered the female band the group while attending the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
