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You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Then in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.

The artist, actual 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 (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with the disease. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.

She gives me her best “Seriously?” look. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.

We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is quick, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I basically roast the fans.”

Medical Challenges and Discovery

Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had a busy schedule.

“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk 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 informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just marched with a gown on and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened recently and my one side now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”

The next operation is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”

A History of Health Challenges

The singer is familiar with health problems. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”

She reminisces to her childhood, already making her debut starring in the London theater in the production (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”

Oi, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees