Nick Cannon said his 2016 split from Mariah Carey set in motion a pattern he now recognizes as trauma that contributed to his decision to father 12 children.
Speaking on The Breakfast Club, the Masked Singer host said he failed to do the "inner work" after the end of his six-year marriage and that many of his subsequent choices "started from a place of pain." "I just didn't do the work. So then I looked up, 12 kids later, and I'm like, 'Wow, I could have did things differently,'" Cannon said. He added that he does not regret his children and that each was "made out of love."
Cannon, 44, said he is now in therapy and using reflection to understand his past behavior. When asked whether his parenting decisions were tied to trauma, he replied, "Yeah, I'm learning that now. It wasn't like I was acting out. It was more of being careless, being frivolous with my process because I could do it, because I had the money, because I had the access to whoever and however I wanted to move."
He said that at the time he was not "mature" enough to plan more intentionally, and that he now sees repeated decisions as symptoms of unaddressed pain. "Now, you're leaving trauma every step of the way instead of fixing it from its origin," he said. He reiterated that he loves his children and stands by his decisions, saying, "I've always said this, every child that I had was made out of love and they were strong relationships."
Cannon became a father in 2011 when Carey gave birth to twins Moroccan and Monroe. He later had three children with Brittany Bell — sons Golden Sagon and Rise Messiah and daughter Powerful Queen — and three with Abby De La Rosa, twins Zion Mixolydian and Zillion Heir and daughter Beautiful Zeppelin. He welcomed a son, Legendary Love, with Selling Sunset star Bre Tiesi and a daughter, Onyx Ice, with LaNisha Cole. With Alyssa Scott he had daughter Halo Marie and son Zen, who died at five months old in December 2021 from brain cancer.
Earlier interviews have seen Cannon describe his approach to relationships and family in personal terms. He said monogamy has "never really been my thing," and has in the past referred to a "king complex" to explain his large family, saying "Kings need a lot of children to pack their courts." He has also publicly acknowledged feeling guilt about not spending enough time with all of his children, telling Dr. Mehmet Oz in 2022 that his "biggest guilt" was being "spread thin" by work and obligations.
Cannon has been open about balancing a busy career with fatherhood. In past interviews he joked about his difficulty recalling all his children's names and has on multiple occasions described his parenting choices as driven by circumstance and lifestyle at the time. In the Breakfast Club interview he said that had he taken more time to "think the process through a little bit more and took time to actually do the inner work," some scenarios might have been different.
He did not outline specific changes to custody or parenting arrangements in the interview. Cannon has said he stands by his family infrastructure and emphasized his love for his children while also framing recent self-reflection and therapy as steps toward addressing the trauma he now believes influenced his earlier decisions.