Nick Cannon shared the heartbreaking news on Tuesday on his daytime show, Nick Cannon, that his 5-month-old son, Zen, had died over the weekend from a rare but serious condition. “I lost my youngest son to a condition called hydrocephalus,” he said, which is a buildup of fluid that can cause pressure on the brain. In Zen’s case, this hydrocephalus was due to a malignant brain tumor, Cannon explained.
The entertainer shared how he and Zen’s mother, Alyssa Scott, learned about Zen’s condition. “I always noticed he had a cough and so I wanted to check it out,” he said. “He had this interesting breathing and by the time he was two months, I noticed 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.”
The doctors told Cannon his son had a buildup of fluid in his head and a malignant tumor in his brain. “Immediately we had to have surgery, it was brain surgery,” Cannon said, and the doctors placed a shunt to drain the built-up fluid. “We were faithful and hopeful for that time. We carried on, he was still just playing with his brothers and sisters, I embraced every moment,” Cannon said. On Thanksgiving, things took a turn for the worse: “The tumor began to grow a lot faster,” Cannon explained.
Cannon said he rearranged his schedule to spend as much quality time with Zen as he could. “This weekend I made a valid effort to spend the most quality time I could spend with Zen. We woke up on Sunday—I got to spend the weekend with him—and I woke up on Sunday and was like, ‘I feel like I want to go to the water.’ We got a chance to go to the ocean.”
Sadly, Zen passed away over the weekend. “I’m probably sharing one of the toughest moments of my life,” Cannon said.