You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. At that moment readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Then in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The musician, birth name J. Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an transparent story, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with the disease. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, cream boots and large glasses. Think rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Jessie is sharp-witted, bold and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. During performances I basically roast the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but this time I just walked with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! It’s funny because 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
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in health crises. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to remind her not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the heart condition WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Oi, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
