You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. There she was readying for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, her latest release, was supposed to be an candid account, tackling every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later next release, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and big frames. Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her standup debut in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was planning an appearance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have indicated malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but then I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but however Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my affected breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s used to physical challenges. Frequently they align with career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career starring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the female band the group while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a year.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
