Another day, another man blaming a woman for his own reckless behavior. *Sigh* In the latest edition of this misogynistic behavior, Nick Cannon just put all the blame for his 12 kids on his ex-wife Mariah Carey — and, yikes! It’s not a good look for the Wild ‘N Out star.
Cannon appeared on The Breakfast Club on Monday morning, where he said that having 10 kids after his divorce from Carey, was a “trauma response,” and we can’t help but roll our eyes a little. (Half the population gets a divorce, dude. And you don’t see them welcoming a dozen kids!)
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Having all those kids was “careless” and “frivolous,” according to Cannon (and basically everyone else). “I had the money. … I had the access to whoever and however I wanted to move,” he shared, per Page Six. “Then, obviously, life happens as well. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna go have 12 kids.’ It was more about, like, ‘Yo, I’m just gonna live life and have fun and whatever happens, happens. I can handle it.’”
Nick Cannon at the 2024 FOX Spring Preview held at FOX Studios on March 4, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.
Gregg DeGuire/Variety
“If I had actually thought the process through a little bit more and taken time to actually do the inner work,” Cannon said, then “things might have been a little different in certain scenarios.”
“If I would have did the work [and] the healing after getting divorced, I probably would have took my time in a lotta other scenarios,” he explained. “For whatever reason, I thought that was the answer a lot of times, like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna figure it out over here.’ As opposed to like, yo, now, you’re leaving trauma every step of the way instead of fixing it from its origin.”
A clip of the interview was posted on Instagram, sparking backlash. “I hate when people try to make ignorance sound deeper than it is….” one person said.
Another commented, “12 kids and 12 broken homes later he came to that revelation 😒.”
“This is ridiculous. People tried to warn him but he thought he could get away with 12 kids in different homes because he was successful and rich as if that’s all it takes to raise a child,” another wrote. “Now he’s trying to spin it and blame it all on trauma, GOH!”
“And him tryna get back at Mariah for leaving him basically and Mimi didn’t bat an eye or break a nail she was like good riddens 🤷🏽♀️😩💯👩🏽💻,” someone else pointed out.
In case you need a recap, the Masked Singer host shares twins Moroccan and Monroe, 14, with Carey. He also has kids Golden, 8, Powerful, 4, and Rise, 2, with Brittany Bell; twins Zion and Zillion, 4, and Beautiful, 2, with Abby De La Rosa; Onyx, 3, with Lanisha Cole; Legendary, 3, with Bre Tiesi; and Halo, 2, with Alyssa Scott. His son Zen with Scott tragically died in Dec. 2021.
Cannon and Carey were married in 2008 and split in 2016. In an interview on the Ray Daniels Presents podcast in Oct. 2024, Cannon shared that he couldn’t handle Carey’s fame when they were together. “I didn’t actually really care what the world thought. But going to myself, that pressure of, ‘Who am I?’ I got married in my 20s to the biggest star in the world,” he said.
LOS ANGELES, CA – MARCH 11: (L-R) TV personality Nick Cannon, Monroe Cannon, singer Mariah Carey and Moroccan Scott Cannon at Nickelodeon’s 2017 Kids’ Choice Awards at USC Galen Center on March 11, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
FilmMagic
“My trajectory was [down] here and she’s already in a different stratosphere,” Cannon said about the “It’s a Wrap” singer. “I would lay up at night thinking, ‘Is this who I am? Am I Mariah’s man? Is that what my life is supposed to be?’” He admitted that he appreciated her money, but he felt his “manship” was threatened when he was “carrying a purse” and “the diaper bag” while she was making money like the rockstar she is.
“I’m main character. I was getting mad at myself. It was like muscle atrophy. I had a gut. It was like, ‘I’m not being the dude God put me on this earth to be,’” he said, as if being a loving dad and supportive husband was something to be ashamed of or looked down upon.
In summary, Carey was too big of a star for Cannon to feel like a man while they were married (rolling my eyes), but their divorced traumatized him so much that he had to go and get five women pregnant with 10 more kids. This man wouldn’t recognize accountability if it bit him in the butt.
Nick Cannon has a dozen kids — here’s what we know about each of them!