You wouldn’t believe it, the singer states. There she was preparing for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The record, her latest release, was supposed to be an open book, tackling every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later next release, Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while coping with breast cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her standup debut soon. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was getting ready for an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but this time I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to highlight not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and young Jessica has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured 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
