You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. There she was gearing up for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, real name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then next release, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while at the same time living with breast cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the film. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Jessie is quick, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her standup debut soon. “I love making people laugh. On stage I often tease the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was getting ready for an slot at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; 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?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but then I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened four months ago and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s experienced in health crises. Frequently they align with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and young Jessica has joined the trio Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
