You can’t imagine it, the singer states. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while at the same time coping with the disease. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and large glasses. Picture motorcycle style meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Jessie is quick, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I frequently joke about the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an performance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“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 assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but now I just walked with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her youth, already starting her career featuring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio the group while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, wait, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
