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You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. There she was readying for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for a decade, on top of the world. Then in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.

The musician, real name J. Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly dealing with the disease. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in July she had a mastectomy.

She gives me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.

Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the crowd.”

Personal Battles and News

The artist was preparing for an appearance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had so much on.

“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after a long hiatus and an extended break. 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 expecting it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They lead you. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a gown on and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal four months ago and my right breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”

The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”

Past Medical Issues

She is no stranger to illness. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”

She reminisces to her youth, already starting her career starring in the London theater in the production (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the trio Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”

Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees