You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The artist, real name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Picture biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I enjoy humor. During performances I often tease the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was planning an performance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after a long hiatus and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened a few months back and my one side now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
She is familiar with health problems. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. Frequently they align with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning performing in the stage in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has joined the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
