You wouldn’t believe it, the singer remarks. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, birth 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 endured since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with the disease. Subsequently she went public, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have indicated malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but then I just marched with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal recently and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is familiar with health problems. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has often paired with high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her childhood, already making her debut featuring in the stage in a musical (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the heart condition WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio the group while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
