You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. At that moment readying for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Then in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, real name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an candid account, tackling every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time dealing with breast cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and large glasses. Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the film. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I basically roast the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album 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 log in believing it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have indicated malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. During crises you are wheeled, but then I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal recently and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her chest, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
She is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to physical challenges. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the trio Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music 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, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
