Nick Cannon Blames Mariah Carey Divorce for ‘Trauma’ Behind 12 Kids

Nick Cannon is opening up about how his divorce from Mariah Carey shaped the path that ultimately led him to fathering 12 children.

The Masked Singer host, 44, revealed that becoming a dad to so many kids stemmed from unresolved pain and a lack of self-reflection following the end of his marriage.

‘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 in a candid interview. ‘But I stand firm on all my decisions because I love all my kids. I love my family infrastructure.’

While appearing on Tuesday’s episode of The Breakfast Club, he explained that his choices ‘started from a place of pain’ after his 2016 split from Carey, and that he now sees the pattern as part of not healing properly.

When asked directly if his parenting decisions were tied to trauma, Cannon 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.’

Looking back, Cannon admitted he wasn’t ‘mature’ enough to plan more intentionally at the time. 

‘Obviously, life happens as well, so it wasn’t like, “Oh, I’m going to go have 12 kids,”‘ he said. ‘It was more about like, “Yo, I’m gonna just live life and have fun and whatever happens, happens. I can handle it.”‘

Now in therapy, the actor says he’s taken time to reflect and work on himself.

‘Being almost 45 now, I could sit back and like, yeah, if I would have thought the process through a little bit more and took time to actually do the inner work. Things might have been a little different in certain scenarios.’

Still, he stressed he doesn’t regret fatherhood: ‘I’ve always said this, every child that I had was made out of love and they were strong relationships.’

Cannon pointed to the end of his six-year marriage as a turning point.

‘I probably would have took my time in a lot of other scenarios and for whatever reason I thought that was the answer a lot of times, like “Oh, I’m gonna figure it out over here,”‘ he admitted. ‘Now, you’re leaving trauma every step of the way instead of fixing it from its origin.’

The former Nickelodeon star also noted that his upbringing influenced his view on relationships, saying monogamy was never his natural path.

‘I’ve always understood that love happens differently, so monogamy has never really been my thing. So, I’m pretty sure that plays a part of it as well, too.’

Cannon first became a father in 2011 when Carey gave birth to twins Moroccan and Monroe. 

He went on to welcome three children with Brittany Bell: sons Golden Sagon and Rise Messiah and daughter Powerful Queen. 

Cannon and Abby De La Rosa also have three children together, the twins Zion Mixolydian and Zillion Heir, as well as their daughter Beautiful Zeppelin. 

He and the Selling Sunset star Bre Tiesi have a son, Legendary Love, and he shares his daughter Onyx Ice with LaNisha Cole. 

Additionally, Cannon also welcomed two children with Alyssa Scott: a daughter name Halo Marie and a son named Zen, who died at just five months old in December 2021 from brain cancer.

He previously joked about being ‘done having kids’ after struggling to remember all 12 names during an interview on The Really Good Podcast.

 He also quipped that his large family stemmed from what he called a ‘king complex.’

‘I really think I’m a king,’ Cannon explained. ‘Kings need a lot of children to pack their courts.’

 In November of last year, he joked that he was a ‘busy man on Thanksgiving.’

In a December 2022 episode of The Checkup With Dr. Agus, he admitted that his ‘biggest guilt’ was not getting to ‘spend enough time with all [his] children.’

‘One, ’cause I’m constantly working, and two, because I’m just spread thin,’ he confessed.