You can’t imagine it, the singer remarks. There she was preparing for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and oversized specs. Imagine motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Jessie is sharp-witted, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her initial standup show next year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I often tease the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was getting ready for an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after a long hiatus and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has often paired with moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her youth, already beginning performing in the stage in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
