You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The LP, her latest release, was intended as an candid account, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with typical candour. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while at the same time dealing with breast cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and large glasses. Imagine biker chic meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show soon. “I love making people laugh. During performances I often tease the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was getting ready for an slot at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after a long hiatus and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a gown on and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my one side now appears as a odd shape.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she notes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Wow, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
