Nick Cannon has opened up, again, about being a father of 11 minor children and revealed something that most of us could probably predict — he doesn’t get to spend enough time with all of his children. He says that it’s his biggest guilt that he’s unable to do so because he is always working and just spread thin. Nick shared these feelings during an appearance on a Paramount+ show, where he also talked expecting his 12th child with Alyssa Scott and the tragic death of their son Zen a year ago.
Nick Cannon is having dad guilt.
The Wild N’ Out host, 42, appeared in the latest installment of The Checkup with Dr. Agus on Paramount+, and opened up about being a father of 11.
“Being a father of multiple kids, it’s always the biggest guilt on me is that I don’t get to spend enough time with all my children,” said Cannon, who is currently expecting his 12th child with Alyssa Scott.
“One ’cause I’m constantly working and two because I’m just spread thin,” he explained.
Also during the sit-down, Cannon shared why he and Scott did not want their first baby, son Zen, to undergo chemotherapy after he was diagnosed with brain cancer. Zen died at 5 months old last December.
“He was healthy, active, always smiling,” Cannon said of his baby boy’s early days, until around two months old, he noticed the infant’s “interesting” breathing patterns.
“We [also] noticed his head was a little larger, [but] all my kids have big heads. I was a big-headed baby,” Cannon added.
Suspecting Zen might have asthma, the parents took him to a doctor’s appointment where his physician was immediately concerned with the size of the baby’s head, which was the “first sign something was occurring.”
Zen was diagnosed with high-grade glioma, a rare and aggressive form of brain cancer. Cannon and Scott were presented with the option of chemotherapy as a course of treatment.
When it came to chemo, Cannon asked if that would extend Zen’s life or lessen his suffering, to which they told him, “not really,” because of the placement of the tumor.
“Seeing your son hooked up to all of those machines — and he had to go for a shunt two or three times, and that was heartbreaking every time — even in that short amount of time, I couldn’t imagine him having to go through chemo.”
Cannon experienced a form of chemo himself as a treatment for his lupus and “knew what that did to me.”
I think that’s the most detail Nick (or Alyssa) has ever gone into about Zen’s brain cancer and death. It’s an incredibly tragic story and certainly Nick didn’t have to explain their reasoning for how they chose to treat him, though it does make sense. Hopefully the baby they’re expecting is healthy and they can have an easier time as new parents this time. As for what Nick says about not spending enough time with his kids… Yeah, of course. Many parents have a hard enough time working and giving attention to three children, let alone 11-12 spread out across different households. He’s telling us a very obvious thing, perhaps one he could have predicted when he decided to have so many children in such a short span of time. No one thought he was putting in a ton of quality time with all these kids, you know? Obviously the moms are doing the lion’s share of the child-rearing. Also, Nick was in the hospital recently for pneumonia. Glad he’s doing better.
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Maybe harsh but what did he think was going to happens. Even with his kids with Mariah I’m sure he missed some stuff before he started to have other kids. So what did he thinks would happen when he started having multiple kids in different households.
I hope he is in therapy to help him deal with the loss of his kid.
Woke, this is not harsh. As an adult, he should be able to foresee the consequences of his behavior. 11 children under one roof is already a challenge most people would never contemplate—this is a choice
That’s pure BS. You want to see your children you make time to see them. End of story.
WTF!!!!
He can’t be feeling much guilt about not spending enough time with his children when he keeps having more.
Exactly. He’s trash
This- if he truly felt guilty about it, he would have realized it several children ago and stopped having more. These children are with six women, which means six different households, which means at BEST, each household gets him one day a week or so. If he’s working all the time, I think reality is probably a couple of hours every few weeks with each kid.
He is a dumbass, and anyone breeding with him (because that’s how he thinks of it) is also a dumbass.
i mean, yes, this is an obvious consequence of having 11 kids who don’t all live in the same house?? even in the families i know that are almost that large but in the same house, the parents struggle to give each kid enough attention, this was an easily forseen problem.
I do feel bad about that poor baby who died though, that’s something no one should have to through.
You don’t say!
If I roll my eyes any harder, they might get stuck.
Who did not see this coming? And it’s about to get way more difficult once all kids are in school and busy with different extracurriculars.
Don’t be fooled though. I’d bet a whole lot that this is not going to stop him from having even more children, by even more women. Women, btw, who are dumb if they think his money is enough to make up for the lack of time he spends with the children.
If he’s not spending any of his money on therapy for himself I hope he’s putting it aside for when his kids need to go. You can absolutely grow up mentally healthy in a single-parent household but I can’t imagine there not being at least one of his children who develop issues as a result of the environment they were born into, no matter how amazing their mothers are to them.
Then why keep having them?
I just can’t with this dude. I hope he has a will and I hope each child is provided for. I hope he is working hard because i cannot IMAGINE how much money it will take to provide for his families.
What a dumb ass. My husband always felt like this even though he lives with his kids and we only have 3. That is actually the argument for only having one or two. Total dumbass
No sh!t, Sherlock!
All these comments are correct.
Nick is an idiot.
Why on earth do these women agree to this?
Who really knows. Perhaps it’s for the money.
It might help the mothers with money, but it absolutely comes at the child’s expense! No way a man is going to be able to give all of those children in different homes enough love, care and attention. And they will be worse off for it. It’s really sad and selfish of both (all) of the parents.
if I had to guess I would say it’s the lifestyle — look at his stable of baby Mama’s — they are one and all the Kardashian special. So the women he chooses to breed with already fit a mold that is pre-occupied with the male gaze, social media and trips to the plastic surgeon.
That shit doesn’t pay for itself.
Nothing. I’ve got nothing. I don’t know if it’s an ego thing, a religious thing, or an irresponsible thing from his perspective. I mean, if he wants a big family, then that’s truly his decision to make and not mine to judge. As for the women, I’m thinking they see a meal ticket . . . 18 years, 18 years. Let me not judge them either. Big sigh.
Anyway, he says that he’s very exhausted from working and therefore can’t see all of his kids. I don’t know what to tell the man. FaceTime? The truth is that when families get that large the amount of quality time a parent has for his/her children dwindles significantly.
I half expect he is working up to building his own compound and installing himself as the cult leader/baby Daddy and living out his petty little God complex.
Yeah dude, that’s why most people opt not to have 12 children.
The majority of his kids will hit puberty around the same time. It’s bad enough parenting one teenager; can you imagine trying to be a father to a baseball team’s worth of (in this case, justifiably) pissy adolescents? Gird your overactive loins, Nick, it doesn’t get easier from here on in.
He needs to see this!! Babies are comparatively easy. It seems really fraught because they’re tiny and totally dependent, and they seem so fragile and delicate. But they also come with (mostly) easily managed problems. You always know where the baby is and who is taking care of them. They don’t have arguments with friends or get their hearts broken. They don’t forget to study for a big test. Nobody is offering your baby drugs/alcohol at a party. They can’t drive or go off in a car with people you don’t know. They’re not under pressure to “fit in” and being shown completely fake images on social media that negatively affect their sense of self-worth.
My 15 year-old is the sweetest, mellowest, least moody, least “problematic” kid on the planet and I still worry about EVERYTHING because it’s so scary. I kind of laugh at myself when I think about all of the worries I had when he was a baby/toddler (although they were valid and I’m not invalidating moms who are at that place now!) Nick’s going to wish for these “easy” days when he’s being drowned in a sea of tween/teen angst in about 10 years.
He said this 5 or 6 kids ago and still when and had more kids. He doesn’t care about them he seems to love the attention he is getting from having all these kids.
Someone made a comment on Nik having lupus may be the reason he is having all these kids, to serve as future/possible Organ donors. The more kids he has the better chance he has for possible matches, I wouldn’t be surprised if it is true.
Whoa. Shiiiiiiiiiit. If that’s true, daaaaaaaaaaaaaamn. I know he got on the spermination train after getting diagnosed, but if that’s true….
HA! I can’t believe that he’s that stupid. He’s assuming a lot. Who said his kids will even want to give him an organ?? He’s on the path to being an absentee parent, the most he might get out of them is thoughts and prayers.
If he’s gonna have this many kids with different moms he should go full FLDS and have them all live in the same house.
He needs to understand that he owes his children the opportunity to get to know him.
The only way to do that is to spend time with them, not just have them in a room.
They did not asked to be born.
Off to mind my business.
Can we NOT with this guy? What did he think would happen when he had kids all over the place? NOW he realizes he can’t spend time with them??? He’s selfish and egotistical.
Well, duh! This guy.
I’m willing to bet money that Nick Cannon had dreams of living with all of these women in some sort of hotel compound where he could sleep with whomever whenever and they would all raise the kids together (minus his kids with Mariah cause MiMi’s not having that at all). He has found out that none of those women wanted any of that, they may be friendly for the sake of the kids but they didn’t want to be some even more ridiculous version of Sister Wives.
Cannon’s baby moms to their children: “Daddy’s coming to visit in two weeks from 3:45 to 4:15 p.m. You get an entire half hour with him and you don’t have to buy a ticket to see him. You’re such a lucky kid!