BREAKING: Nick Cannon announces youngest son dies of brain tumor

Nick Cannon announced on Tuesday that his youngest son, Zen, has died from a brain tumor.

He made the announcement on The Nick Cannon Show Tuesday morning, telling the audience his 5-month-old son passed away from Hydrocephalus, a form of brain cancer, in which fluid builds up in the cavities of the brain and increases the size of the ventricles, putting pressure on the brain.

Cannon, 41, said the tumor developed quickly around Thanksgiving, and as he broke down in tears on his show, he told how he spent this past weekend in California to share a few last moments with Zen. 

The actor said he took his son on a trip to the beach on Sunday, when Nick held Zen for the last time. He died soon after. 

Zen is Nick’s seventh child, born in June to model Alyssa Scott. 

He was the fourth of Nick’s children born within the past year and a half, with twins Zillion and Zion born in June, and his daughter, Powerful, born last December.

The seven children are with four different women, including his ex-wife Mariah Carey, ex-girlfriend Brittany Bell, his current partner Abby de la Rosa, and model Alyssa Scott, who appeared in one of Cannon’s music videos. 

Cannon explained on his show that the issues with Zen began when he was just about 2 months old, when he and Zen’s mother, model Alyssa Scott, noticed his head seemed large and they thought he had developed a sinus issue.

‘I always noticed he had a cough and so I wanted to check it out,’ Cannon said. ‘He had this interesting breathing and by the time he was two months, he had this nice sized head too – a Cannon head.

‘We didn’t think anything of it. But I wanted to take him to the doctor for his sinus and breathing. We thought it would be routine.’

But instead, the baby had to have brain surgery and a shunt put in place to drain the fluid, but things just got worse. 

‘This weekend, I made an effort to spend the most quality time with Zen,’ Cannon told his audience.

‘We woke up on Sunday and went to the ocean with him and Alyssa, and then I had to fly back to New York for the show.

‘I got a call on my way to the airport to head back to Zen.’

Cannon then recounted how he held his son for the last time this weekend, saying: ‘You can’t heal until you feel,’ and noting that he is at work so soon after the tragedy because working in show business is all he knows.

He dubbed Tuesday’s episode a ‘celebration of life’ for Zen.

An unnamed source also told Entertainment Tonight that the talk show was originally supposed to have two tapings on Monday, including a live show.

‘Those were both unexpectedly canceled on Sunday,’ the source said, ‘and a pre-taped episode was aired on Monday instead.’ 

Cannon has seven children with four different women.

He had twins, Monroe and Moroccan Scott Cannon, with his ex-wife, Mariah Carey, on their third wedding anniversary on April 30, 2011.

Monroe received her name from Marilyn Monroe, an inspiration to singer Mariah Carey, while Moroccan, nicknamed ‘Roc’ got his name from the Moroccan décor in the apartment where Nick proposed to Mariah back in 2008.

Cannon also had a son, Golden Sagon with model his then-girlfriend Brittany Bell on February 21, 2017, and the two had a daughter, Powerful Queen born last December.

Then came twins Zion Mixolydian Cannon and Zillion Heir to his current partner Abby de la Rosa on June 14, before Zen was born on June 23.

Cannon has said he does not subscribe to the idea of monogamy.

In an interview with The Breakfast Club, he said: ‘The idea that a man should have one women… we shouldn’t have anything. I have no ownership over this person. It’s about what exchange we can create together. So I’ve never really subscribed to that mentality.

‘I don’t want ownership over anybody. I don’t have ownership over any of the mothers. We created a beautiful entity.

‘Those women, all women, are the ones that open themselves up and say “I would like to allow this man into my world. And I will birth this child.”

‘It ain’t my decision,’ he said. ‘I’m following suit.

‘Every women that I deal with or dealt with, they know how I feel,’ he added.  

Cannon has also previously talked about his refusal to wear condoms in a 2017 interview with Howard Stern, which resurfaced this past year as he started to have a slew of children.

He said at the time: ‘I might die in the morning, so why wear condoms?’

But the actor/singer changed his tune in October, announced that he was going to try to be celibate until at least 2022.

‘I’m going to try to be celibate until 2022,’ he said on his talk show, according to Parade. ‘We’re going to see if we can make it to the end of the year.

‘Somebody said, “You should go longer. Take your time,”‘ he recounted. ‘We’ll get to the end of the year, then we’ll talk about 2022.’