On Tuesday night, Jane Marczewski who goes by her stage name “Nightbirde,” was awarded the Golden Buzzer after singing her original song, “It’s OK” on NBC’s “America’s Got Talent.” It’s something that contestants only dream about. Watch the video below.
The Golden Buzzer, which automatically sends Nightbirde to the live shows, brought the crowd and every judge to their feet in a standing ovation with many in tears.
It didn’t take long for the 30-year-old committed Christian to win over the hearts of America’s Got Talent judges Simon Cowell, Heidi Klum, Howie Mandel and Sofía Vergara.
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While singing “It’s Ok,” Nightbirde’s authenticity and angelic vocals took center stage and into the hearts of both judges and viewers. Cowell, often a fairly harsh and even rude critic, described her voice “absolutely stunning.”
During the audition, however, Nightbirde shared some tough personal news — she had “some cancer” in her lungs, spine and liver. Nightbirde also later revealed that she was given a 2% chance of survival.
“That felt like the most authentic thing I’ve heard this season,” “America’s Got Talent” television host Howie Mandel said following Marczewski’s performance.
Despite battling cancer off and on since 2017 and having been out of work for the last several years due to her health, the Liberty University grad has not allowed her tragedy to become her identity.
In a 2019 New Year’s Eve blog post on her website, Nightbirde shared her diagnosis with terminal cancer. As she described it, “innumerable tumors were found throughout my lungs, liver, lymph nodes, ribs and spine.”
“I was on the living room floor leaning over the report, head in my hands. Six months to live. Two percent chance of survival,” she wrote.
In another blog post she states she then moved to California and underwent treatments. On July 20, 2020, Nightbird posted a celebratory video on social media declaring that she was “cancer free.”
She has recently told NBC4i.com in California that she currently has cancer again and isn’t “in the clear.” That’s what has given her a 2% survival rate.
“It’s important that everyone knows I’m so much more than the bad things that happen to me,” she said from the stage.
“You can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore before you decide to be happy,” she added. “I have a 2 percent chance of survival, but 2 percent is not 0 percent. Two percent is something, and I wish people knew how amazing it is.”
It was during Marczewski’s time as an advertising and public relations student that she was first encouraged to pursue music as a career.
“At Liberty, I was constantly challenged with the question, ‘If you could do anything for this world and you knew that you would succeed, what would you do?’” she said in a feature in the Liberty Journal in 2019. “For me, the answer to that question was always music, but music was never on the radar for me as a career path. If I had not come to Liberty, I don’t think that I would be doing this. It was pounded into my head that I needed to pursue what I was passionate about.”
–Dwight Widaman and wire services
