You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. At that moment readying for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with her cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and large glasses. Picture motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was preparing for an slot at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after a long hiatus and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ 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.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. During crises you go on a gurney, but then I just strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened a few months back and my affected breast now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s used to physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the West End in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse 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 teenage Jess has become part of the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
