You can’t imagine it, the singer states. There she was preparing for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an open book, addressing every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while dealing with the disease. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, cream boots and large glasses. Picture motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have indicated malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but then I just strolled down 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 surgery. “It’s terrible, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened four months ago and my one side now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s experienced in health crises. Frequently they align with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or blow, to remind her not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut featuring in the stage in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and young Jessica has joined the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
