You can’t imagine it, the singer says. There she was gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The musician, birth name J. Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an transparent story, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with her cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Jessie is fast-thinking, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her standup debut in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I often tease the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was getting ready for an slot at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but then I just walked with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but however Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened a few months back and my affected breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning starring in the London theater in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
