You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. There she was gearing up for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Then in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The record, her latest release, was meant as an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, was released 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. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and large glasses. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the movie. “They used to call me that!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, bold and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
She was planning an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘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 informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have indicated aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but this time I just walked with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but however Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. Frequently they align with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already making her debut featuring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio the group while attending the Brit 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 larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
