You couldn’t make it up, the singer states. There she was gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, real name J. Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, addressing every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while all the while living with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer 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 big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. She is sharp-witted, bold and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was preparing for an slot at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just walked with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my right breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already starting her career starring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and young Jessica has joined the girl group the group while enrolled in the academy. “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 throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
