Nick Cannon Says He Didn’t Plan To Have 12 Kids; It Just Happened

Nick Cannon wants the world to know that he’s not trying to be the next Elon Musk of fatherhood. In a refreshingly honest interview with Vulture, the 44-year-old entertainer opened up about his very big family (12 children with six different women) and how it all came to be. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t exactly planned.

While people think he might have had a master plan to have this many kids, Nick clarified that that is not the case. According to him, his large family was due to “his eagerness to appease the women he was dating or his single friends who wanted kids.”

But even he admits things got a little out of hand.  As he confessed: “It was also a little bit of, like, ‘Okay God, how did I have five kids in one year?’. Probably careless activity.”

Nick’s large blended family came with five children in one year. In 2022 alone, Nick became a dad to Legendary Love with Bre Tiesi in July, Onyx Ice Cole with LaNisha Cole in September, Rise Messiah with Brittany Bell in September, Beautiful Zeppelin with Abby De La Rosa in November, and Halo Marie with Alyssa Scott in December. And that’s just in one year. The Wild ’N Out host is also dad to Golden Sagon (born in 2017), Powerful Queen (born in 2020),

Zion Mixolydian and Zillion Heir (twins, born in 2021) with Abby De La Rosa, Zen with Alyssa Scott, who tragically passed away at 5 months old in 2021, and Monroe and Moroccan (twins, born in 2011) with ex-wife Mariah Carey.

Nick says he never set out to have a dozen kids, but life had other plans.

“There was a point where I was like, ‘I’m done.’ And, then I was like, ‘Who am I to say that?’ It seemed like it was such an emphatic thing, he told PEOPLE earlier this year.” “I never imagined that I would have 12 kids. So, it’s one of those things where I love children. I love my life, and if it could keep going in the direction that it’s going, why not?” 

For now, Nick isn’t planning to add more babies to the brood — but he’s also not ruling it out.

“The world is a crazy place,” he said. “I never say ‘never.’”