You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. At that moment readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name J. Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The record, her latest release, was intended as an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The first single, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly dealing with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and oversized specs. Picture biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is sharp-witted, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I basically roast the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was preparing for an slot at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an test, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ My initial 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 fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but this time I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened recently and my one side now appears as a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, wait, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
