Nick Cannon fathered 12 children because of divorce 'trauma'

Nick Cannon became a father to 12 children because he was "careless" and should have taken more time to heal from the "trauma" of his divorce.

The TV star was married to singer Mariah Carey from 2008 to 2016. They have 14-year-old twins, Moroccan and Monroe. He also has 10 other children from different relationships.

He recently opened up about the reasons behind his large brood, admitting he never intended to father so many kids.

During an appearance on "The Breakfast Club" radio show, he explained: "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 [and] because I had the access to whoever and however I wanted to move.

"Then, obviously, life happens as well, so it wasn't like: 'Oh, I'm gonna go have 12 kids.' It was more about like: 'Yo, I'm gonna just live life and have fun and whatever happens happens. I can handle it'."

As well as his twins with Carey, Cannon is also dad to Golden, eight, Powerful, four, and Rise, two, with Brittany Bell; three-year-old twins Zillion and Zion and Beautiful, two, with Abby De La Rosa; Legendary, two, with Bre Tiesi, Onyx, two, with LaNisha Cole; and two-year-old Halo with Alyssa Scott, the mom of his late son Zen who died aged five months in 2021.

Cannon went on to insist he was damaged after his split from Carey and needed to do more "inner work" to heal after the breakup.

He added: "Being almost 45 now, I could sit back and like, yeah, 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.

"I don't know ... because I've always said this, every child that I had was made out of love and there were strong relationships.

"If I would have did the work [and] the healing after getting divorced, I probably would have took my time in a lot other scenarios and for whatever reason I thought that was the answer a lot of times, like: 'Oh, I'm gonna figure it out over here'.

"Now, you're leaving trauma every step of the way instead of fixing it from its origin."

Cannon recently admitted he's going to "press hold" on having any more children right now, but he's "not against" expanding his family again in the future.

He told "People" magazine: "I really don't know [about having more children]. I'm being honest. I'm having so much fun in this space right now, and the way my bank account is set up, I'm going to press hold on this 12 for right now.

"But. I was just speaking of three years from now [or] five years from now, who knows? I'm not against it."