Nick Cannon‘s 5-month-old son Zen has passed away after a battle with brain cancer, the media personality has revealed.
The 41-year-old TV host shared the devastating news on an episode of his new talk show, The Nick Cannon Show on Tuesday. Cannon and Alyssa Scott welcomed their son Zen, his seventh child, in June of this year, theGrio previously reported. Fighting through tears, Cannon addressed his audience directly when revealing that Zen had battled Hydrocephalus, a form of brain cancer.
Cannon detailed the early months of Zen’s life, who he called the “most loving kid.”
“I always noticed he had a cough and so I wanted to check it out,” he revealed. “He had this interesting breathing and by the time he was two months old I noticed he had this nice sized head too — a Cannon head.” Still, he revealed he wanted to take him to the doctor “for his sinuses and breathing.”
He explained, “We thought it would be routine.”
They eventually learned Zen had fluid building up in his head due to a malignant tumor. Cannon revealed, “Immediately we had to have surgery…we put a shunt in his head and we were hoping for the best.”
After the surgery, Cannon detailed that he embraced every moment to spend as much time as he could with Zen, before things unfortunately took a turn for the worst around Thanksgiving.
He shared that around the holiday the tumor began to grow faster, and they realized that their time was limited with Zen. He tearfully shared, “This weekend I made an effort to spend the most quality time with Zen. 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.”
He then shared with the audience that he held Zen for the last time over the weekend.
“I didn’t know how I was gonna handle today,” he shared, explaining that he felt compelled to share this story and that he feels “so much faith in God.” He added, “You can’t heal until you feel.”
Cannon then dedicated the show to his “beautiful son Z.”
Per Entertainment Tonight, the show was expected to shoot two episodes on Monday, including a live show. “Those were both unexpectedly cancelled on Sunday and a pre-taped episode was aired on Monday instead,” a source revealed to the outlet.
Story & Photo Credit: Jared Alexander/thegrio
