‘America’s Got Talent’ Contestant Who Quit Due to Cancer Diagnosis Gives Health Update

America’s Got Talent contestant Jane Marczewski, also known as Nightbirde, is opening up about her health after the 30-year-old singer-songwriter and three-time cancer survivor announced Monday she was forced to drop out of the competition to focus on her health. Having taken a turn for the worse in her cancer battle, Nightbirde told Cuomo Prime Time host Chris Cuomo Wednesday that having to leave the NBC competition show was “pretty devastating.”

“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,” she explained. Having to leave the show after earning judge Simon Cowell‘s Golden Buzzer back in June was extra difficult.

“I’m not a quitter. So it was really, really hard for me to say that I couldn’t finish the show,” she explained. “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.”

Asked if she had always been able to face life with such an attitude, Nightbirde responded, “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.”

When it comes to the “why me?” aspect of her cancer battle, Nightbirde said she tries not to dwell on questions that are “too big” for her to answer. “It’s a waste of time,” she explained. “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.”

The musician said that she had the choice to become “bitter” throughout her cancer journey, but “decided in my most painful moments to keep my eyes open.” She continued, “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.”