Comedian and television host Nick Cannon is still mourning the death of his infant son Zen. The bereaved father, although he has continued to stay busy with shows like “The Masked Singer,” “Wild ‘N Out” and his self-titled talk show, let the world know how difficult it is for him to have lost his 5-month-old baby.
He writes in a heartbreaking caption, “Still missing my little dude… His Spirit and brightness were soo strong #ZensLight.”
After quoting the Christian scripture 2 Corinthians 5:8, which reads, “To be absent from the body, is to be present with the Lord,” he speaks for his entire clan and says, “The whole family, We ALL miss you young King! Forever Our Angel!”
Tragically, at the beginning of December 2021, Cannon’s “angel” was diagnosed with hydrocephalus, a condition that causes a buildup of fluid on the brain, and ultimately died from a brain tumor.
Zen was Cannon’s seventh child and only child with model Alyssa Scott.
On his show, Cannon spoke about his condition and how it was discovered. “I always noticed he had like a little, like to me, a little sinus thing, like a cough. .. we thought he would cough it out, but he always had this real interesting breathing,” he said, noting that his boy had what he called a “Cannon Head.”
“By the time he was two months old, I noticed like he was the cutest little boy, like big eyes, and I also noticed he got a nice-sized head. I call it a Cannon head. All my kids got really nice round heads,” he explained. “We didn’t think anything about it. He had a normal Cannon head.”
“I really wanted to take him to the doctor to get the breathing, and the sinus thing checked out,” he continued to share. “We thought it would be a routine process, and we went in just to check his sinuses. They actually said his sinuses were pretty cool … We found out that he had another condition where it was fluid building up in his head and that was the cause of his head starting to get big. They called it a malignant tumor in his head.”
The parents immediately started their small child on treatments, including brain surgery and having a stent placed in his head to assist in draining the fluid out of his head. However, by the holiday season, the treatments didn’t produce the results he had wanted.
“Thanksgiving, we had an interesting turn; the process sped up, and ultimately, if anyone know how cancer … it was cancer in the brain. And the tumor began to grow a lot faster,” the “Drumline” actor revealed.
Cannon shared that he spent time with his son during the end, deciding to change his schedule around to catch the baby’s last sunrise and sunset.
He said, “I made a valid effort to spend the most quality time I could spend with Zen.”
On his Dec. 7 show Cannon announced his son’s transition and dedicated the episode in his honor.
The actor has made several tributes over the Past two months. The most demonstrative is a tattoo of Zen on his side, inked as a baby cherub, ala Cupid. He shared this with the show’s viewers also.
“I’m still all bandaged up, and it hurts right here right now. … It was a lot of pain, but it was so well worth it,” Cannon told the audience. “I enjoyed every moment of the experience to forever have my son right here as my rib, right here on my side, as my angel.”
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