You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. There she was preparing for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Then second single, Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time dealing with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show soon. “I like entertaining. When performing I basically roast the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was preparing for an slot at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an scan, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. During crises you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a gown on and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal recently and my right breast now appears as a odd shape.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to remind her not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group the group while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
