Nick Cannon opens up about having 12 kids, admits it was ‘trauma’ response

In a candid sit-down with “The Breakfast Club”, Cannon said his divorce and unprocessed trauma influenced his approach to relationships and fatherhood.

Nick Cannon pulled up to “The Breakfast Club” to discuss a myriad of things (ie. his Narcissistic Personality Disorder) and of course, the subject of his 12 children came up. What followed was evidence that the multi-hyphenate personality and performer has been doing some work in therapy. 

In his conversation with Charlamagne Tha God and Loren Lorosa, Cannon mentions that until he got into therapy, he wasn’t really healing or doing the work to heal from his divorce, and he looked up and 12 kids later he realized he could have done some things differently. He attributes some of that decision-making to the pain he never healed from. 

Charlamagne asked the next logical question, which was, “So you think having all of those kids was a response to your trauma?” 

From there, Cannon did all the heavy lifting. As a point of note, Cannon has 12 kids from various relationships, including from his marriage to musical legend and icon, Mariah Carey. 

“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.

“[As] opposed to, like, doing a mature thing and saying, ‘hey, well, it probably makes more sense to do this.’ And then, obviously, life happens as well. So it wasn’t like, well, I’m gonna go have 12 kids. It was more about, like, ‘Yo, I’mma just live life and have fun and whatever happens, happens, I can handle it.’”

He reflected, then, on what he knows now and the realizations that have come with therapy and time. 

“You know, being almost 45 now, I can sit back and be like, 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.”

Lorosa then asked another question that I’m sure anybody aware of Cannon’s situation has always wondered, especially since he’s shared so much recently about his therapy journey: “You wouldn’t have 12 kids?” 

“I don’t know, and I’ve always said this, every child that I have was made out of love. And it was strong relationships. It’s just it was, if I would have done the work and the healing after getting divorced, I probably would have took my time in a lot of others scenarios,” he shared before providing one of the most thoughtful responses and proof that therapy has been beneficial to him in his journey going forward.

“I thought that was the answer a lot of times. It was like, ‘Oh, I’mma figure it out over here. I’mma figure it out over here, opposed [to] leaving trauma every step of the way, instead fixing it from its origin.”

As Cannon has been very open with his journey and sharing, hopefully his realizations can be implemented and allow him to have the best relationships possible with both his children and the mothers of his children.