You couldn’t make it up, the singer remarks. At that moment readying for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Then in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, birth name J. Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The album, her latest release, was intended as an candid account, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show next year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I frequently joke about the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
She was planning an appearance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but then I just walked with a gown on and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my affected breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s used to physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already starting her career performing in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees