Nick Cannon has been a subject of speculation for years, specifically because of his polyamorous relationships and now 12 children.
In 2022, Cannon welcomed his eleventh child, Beautiful Zeppelin, with DJ and radio personality Abby De La Rosa, and his twelfth child, Halo Marie Cannon, with model Alyssa Scott.
Though Cannon professed that all of his relationships were loving, nurturing, and open, and that all of his children were made from love, some people still raised their eyebrows. In 2022, Cannon was openly dating De La Rosa, Scott, and also Brittany Bell, Bre Tiesi, and LaNisha Cole, while coparenting with ex-wife Mariah Carey.
While appearing on the Breakfast Club podcast, Cannon opened up about being in therapy, being diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, not initially responding well to his breakup with Mariah Carey, and how having 12 children may have been a response to trauma, rather than a mindful decision.
Cannon now has healthy coparenting relationships with all six moms, but he's discovered through therapy that while he wouldn't change his relationships, he might have been more mindful about preparing for children and the mindset he had going into fatherhood.
Cannon reflected:
"A lot of it, if we're being completely honest, a lot of it is the trauma that I was experiencing of not knowing how to handle divorce. You know what I mean? And me acting out because I'm like, 'Oh, I'm the man now!'"
"Instead of healing and doing what I should have actually did, I just jumped out there, like distractions from the actual work that I probably should have done."
"For a long time, I was like, 'Look, I just got to keep making money. I got to stay hot. I got to stay funny. Everything else will figure itself out.' And I just didn't do the work. So then I looked up, you know, 12 kids later."
While he wouldn't change his kids, he thought receiving therapy sooner might have helped him plan better.
"I'm like, 'Wow, I could have done things very differently. But I stand firm on all of my decisions, because I love all my kids, I love my family infrastructure. But I know it all started from a place of pain and not really healing properly."
"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."
"I think 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."
You can watch the podcast segment here:
Some viewers found this to be a great example of preaching to the choir.
Child after child, people have openly questioned over the years if Nick Cannon was being mindful in his relationships and his fatherhood, and whether parenting so many children and navigating so many relationships at once was his way of avoiding something else. Hearing him admit it on the podcast was validation.
Not to mention the fact that the last time Cannon appeared on the podcast, co-host Jess Hilarious brought this exact subject up and suggested that being attracted to parenting so many children might be a response to trauma, and not only did Cannon deny her theory, but she was openly criticized online for misreading the situation, being hateful, and overstepping.
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Everyone's journey is different, and that includes our trauma and how we react to it, and our life choices. Though a lot of people on the outside looking in thought they could see what was happening, it was important for Cannon to go through this process and realize it for himself.
While he might not regret anything from his past, knowing what he knows now will help him to make more informed and mindful decisions in the future.
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