You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, actual name J. Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while still secretly dealing with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and big frames. Think biker chic meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is sharp-witted, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut soon. “I enjoy humor. During performances I basically roast the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was getting ready for an slot at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the post-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 tells it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after a long hiatus and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have indicated malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I 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 lead you. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
She is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her childhood, already making her debut performing in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has become part of the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
