Nick Cannon is speaking out about the heartbreaking loss of his 5-month-old son Zen to a rare form of brain cancer.
In a cover story for People, published Wednesday (Dec. 15), the host of The Masked Singer opened up about making the painful decision to forgo treatment in favor of giving the baby the best quality of life possible.
“We started asking, ‘Is there a way to prevent this? If not, how long do we have?’ The conversations quickly turned to, ‘How can we give him the best life for the time that he does have?’ It could be weeks, it could be months, it could be years,” Cannon told the magazine of the decision he had to make with Zen’s mother, Alyssa Scott. “We could have had that existence where he would’ve had to live in the hospital, hooked up to machines, for the rest of the time.”
The star’s own battle with lupus helped inform his decision-making process with Scott. “From someone who’s had to deal with chemotherapy before, I know that pain,” he said. ‘To see that happen to a 2-month-old, I didn’t want that. I didn’t want him to suffer.”
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Understandably, Cannon is still grappling with the loss of his son and the myriad of emotions that come with such a painful tragedy. “Dealing with something like this, it’s a numbing feeling initially,” he said, “and then when you slowly start to feel again, it’s a confusing feeling. But you know, at the end of the day I know I’ll be strong through it. But it just feels like something that’s gonna be definitely long-lasting.”
Cannon revealed during the Dec. 7 episode of The Nick Cannon Show that little Zen had died. He explained that about two months after the little boy’s birth, Zen seemed to have a “sinus” thing and a “nice-sized head.” The child was later diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor.
In addition to Zen, the “Big Clouds” rapper also has five-month-old twins Zion Mixolydian and Zillion Heir, 11-month-old daughter Powerful Queen, 4-year-old son Golden, and 10-year-old twins Monroe and Moroccan with ex-wife Mariah Carey.