Who is Nightbirde?
It’s not often a contestant can move Simon Cowell to get choked up, but Nightbirde, a.k.a. Jane Marczweski, did just that when she performed on America’s Got Talent Tuesday (June 8) — so much so that the singer-songwriter even received Cowell’s Season 16 Golden Buzzer.
The 30-year-old singer wowed the judges with her unique vocals and heartfelt lyrics, performing an extremely personal song she wrote titled “It’s OK.”
During her audition for the reality competition show, Marczweski revealed that she has cancer in her lungs, spine and liver, and was told she has a two percent chance at survival. She later told Channel 10 News that, according to her January scans, the cancer has spread. Despite her odds, she said, “I have a two percent chance of survival but two percent isn’t zero percent. Two percent is something and I wish people knew how amazing it is.”
“It’s OK” paints a picture of the positive mindset she’s tried to maintain throughout her medical journey. After she performed, she told the audience something that rendered even Cowell speechless: “You can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore to decide to be happy.”
Watch her breathtaking performance, below:
“I was so shocked at first, it seemed like he [Cowell] wasn’t going to put me through, and I was really disappointed at that,” Marczewski told the Newark Advocate about her experience on stage, when she received the judge’s Golden Buzzer. “And then there was a pause and he reached for the buzzer.”
The Zanesville, Ohio native moved to California to pursue her dream of becoming a singer shortly after her first diagnosis with cancer, during which she was told she had three to six months to live. On her personal blog, she noted that during her treatment, “the man I married said he didn’t love me anymore.” By July 2020, she went into remission.
Unfortunately, following her remission, she suffered head trauma as her “brain was sending false signals of excruciating pain and panic.” She shared that she went into a catatonic state and that her brain’s ability to process stress or emotion was functioning at eight percent.
Marczewski overcame the head trauma through extensive therapy. However, she was recently diagnosed with cancer for a third time.
Although she has an inspiring backstory, Marczewski’s vocals and lyricism are remarkable and speak for themselves. On Thursday (June 10), “It’s OK” reached the top of the all-genre singles chart on iTunes.
You can support Nightbirde by donating to her GoFundMe to help fund her medical treatments or purchasing merch on her webstore.