Entertainment
America’s Got Talent: Simon Cowell’s Golden Buzzer act Nightbirde on ‘devastating’ withdrawal from show due to liver cancer
America’s Got Talent contestant Nightbirde has opened up about her decision to drop out from the show in a new interview (Picture: NBC)
America’s Got Talent fan-favorite Nightbirde has spoken about her devastation after having to pull out of season 16 in order to fight liver cancer.
The 30-year-old singer – real name Jane Marczewski – had been preparing to perform at the live shows after getting the golden buzzer from Simon Cowell, however, the star was unable to continue on the reality competition show due to her cancer treatments.
Speaking candidly about the decision to drop out and focus on her health, Nightbirde told CNN anchor Chris Cuomo: ‘Well, to tell you the truth, I’ve been curled up in a ball like a cocktail shrimp, having an A-plus pity party for myself, because it’s just been a bad, bad month. It’s been really, pretty devastating.’
Appearing for a second time on Cuomo Prime Time, the determined hitmaker explained she had received news about cancer regrowth in her lungs and liver just one week before her announcement.
The musician stressed: ‘I’m not a quitter. So it was really, really hard for me to say that I couldn’t finish the show. I got shocking news less than a week ago about cancer regrowth that has taken over my lungs and liver. So my liver right now is mostly cancer. More cancer than liver in there right now.
‘But like I said, I’m planning my future, not my legacy. Some people would call that blind denial. I prefer to call it rebellious hope. And I’m not stopping anytime soon.’
After quoting lyrics to a song she’s been working on, Nightbirde asked: ‘Don’t you want to see what happens if you don’t give up? Don’t you want to see what happens?
‘And that’s what I keep saying to myself and that’s what I say to everyone watching tonight. Don’t you want to see what happens if you don’t give up?’
When Chris asked, ‘Have you always been like this?’, Nightbirde responded: ‘I don’t know. I think when you’re faced with so many blows to the gut in a row, like I have over the past several years, you find out what you’re made of in a sense, and you’re given the opportunity to choose what you want to become. So no, I don’t think I was always this way.’
Chris questioned whether Nightbirde ever got upset and frustrated about her situation, to which she replied: ‘I try not to occupy myself with questions that are too big for myself to answer. It’s a waste of time. You know, just because it’s a mystery doesn’t mean it’s the absence of meaning.
‘Sometimes, the mystery means there is more meaning there than we can even understand and so I accept that and I let go of the questions because it’s too heavy.’
When Chris praised the singer for taking ‘things on that would cripple the rest of us’, the singer responded: ‘Not denying the pain of today and not denying the hope of tomorrow.
‘And when you go through something that is so devastating, makes no sense, there are no answers, you kind of have the choice, like, am I going to become bitter, or am I not? You do have a choice, you know.’
She continued: ‘You do get to decide what becomes of you in a sense and, you know, I’ve decided in my most painful moments to keep my eyes open because it’s easier.
‘It’s easier to close your eyes and to give up and forget it but there is so much beauty and poetry to be seen in the world if you’re willing to sign off on the pain that it takes to stay awake in the middle of something that hurts so bad, that’s all this is. Anybody can do it.’
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The singer also thanked Chris and his team for the money the show had helped raise on her GoFundMe page, before the host stated: ‘Well, I’ll tell you what, any way that we can help, you know we’re a call away. Anything you ever want to play for people, I’m happy to play it.
‘As you know, that’s not what my show is about but you are worth deviation because I believe you’re exactly who we need to be. We all got to get a little bit of ‘Nightbirde’ in ourselves and remember how to live our lives. That’s what I believe you’ve taught me, that we got to remember how to live our lives.’
America’s Got Talent airs Tuesdays on NBC in the US, while it is available to stream on Netflix in the UK.
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