You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. At that moment preparing for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, birth name J. Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, her latest release, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometriosis, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly dealing with breast cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I release 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, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We’re at a studio in London. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, beige footwear and big frames. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Jessie is sharp-witted, bold and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show next year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was planning an slot at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Frequently they align with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her youth, already beginning starring in the stage in a musical (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward several years, and young Jessica 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 cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees