You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. There she was readying for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name J. Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was meant as an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The first single, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time living with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and oversized specs. Think motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Jessie is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her standup debut next year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was planning an appearance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ 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 reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but this time I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning starring in the West End in the production (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Hey, I say, wait, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
