Television star Nick Cannon, known for having 12 children with six women, said Monday that having so many kids was “careless” without his having worked through his own trauma first.
Cannon, the host of TV’s “Masked Singer” and “Nick Cannon at Night,” revealed his reassessment of his fatherhood journey on “The Breakfast Club” radio show and podcast, hosted by Charlamagne Tha God, Jess Hilarious and DJ Envy.
Asked about his decisions to father his children, Cannon, who has also worked as a comedian, music artist and actor, said he might have done things differently knowing what he has learned in therapy about how childhood trauma can affect adult behavior.
“If I would have did the work and the healing … I probably would have took my time in a lot of other scenarios,” he said. “Things might have been a little different.”
Cannon said his 2016 divorce from singer Mariah Carey after eight years of marriage added to his personal trauma. The two had his first children, twins Monroe and Moroccan Scott, in 2011. Cannon told the show he acted out after the breakup.
“A lot of it is the trauma that I was experiencing of not knowing how to handle divorce,” he said. “I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m the man now.’ And instead of healing and doing what I should have actually did, I just jumped out there.”
However, he emphasized the importance of his children and expressed no regrets.
“Every child that I had was made out of love, and there were strong relationships,” Cannon said on the podcast, which originates at New York City hip-hop radio station Power 105.1.
Following the divorce of his own parents, he has said, Cannon was raised by his grandparents in publicly assisted housing in a Southeast San Diego neighborhood known for its “four corners of death” intersection where gangs collided. He has four younger brothers.
In June, he said on Bobbi Althoff’s “The Really Good Podcast” that coming from a big family made him want to have a big family. He also said it’s unlikely he’ll have more children.
“I think I’m done,” he said at the time.
After having twins with Carey, Cannon fathered 10 other children.
Model Brittany Bell shares son Golden Sagon, born in 2017; daughter Powerful Queen, born in 2020; and son Rise Messiah, born in 2022, with Cannon. Photographer LaNisha Cole shares daughter Onyx Ice Cole, born in 2022, with Cannon. DJ and radio personality Abby De La Rosa shares twins Zion Mixolydian and Zillion Heir, born in June 2021, and daughter Beautiful Zeppelin, born in 2022, with Cannon. Model Alyssa Scott shared son Zen, who died from a malignant brain tumor at 5 months old in 2021 with Cannon; the two also share daughter Halo Marie, born in late 2022. Real estate agent and model Bre Tiesi shares son Legendary Love, born in 2022, with Cannon.
“When I was 30, I didn’t have any kids,” Cannon said on “The Really Good Podcast.” “Then, by the time I was 40, I had 12.”
His success, including appearances in movies such as “Drumline” and television hits such as “Wild ‘N Out,” brought him an estimated $100 million a year in income by the 2020s, which he has said he now needs to provide for his children.
The money may have also clouded his judgment, he said on “The Breakfast Club.”
“It wasn’t like I was acting out,” he said. “It was more of being careless, being frivolous with my process, because I could do it, because I had the money.”
He said that at the time he was having children he thought he would “figure it out” along the way. Lately that includes family counseling sessions with some of his children, he said.
“I didn’t get a chance to slow down until I got in therapy,” Cannon said of his fatherhood journey. “But I was just like: ‘Look, I just got to keep making money. I got to stay hot, I got to stay funny and everything else will figure itself out.’ And I just didn’t do the work. So then I looked up, you know, 12 kids later, and I’m like, wow, I could have did things very differently.”
