You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The musician, real name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, her latest release, was intended as an open book, addressing every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then follow-up track, 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 at the same time coping with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Picture motorcycle style meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was planning an appearance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but then I just marched with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal four months ago and my affected breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in the production (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
