Nick Cannon Announces Death Of 5-Month-Old Son Zen Following Brain Cancer Battle

In tragic news, Nick Cannon‘s 5-month-old baby Zen has passed away. The TV personality made the devastating announcement on Tuesday.

Talking to his viewers on the Nick Cannon show, the 41-year-old revealed his youngest child, whom he shared with model Alyssa Scott, lost his battle to Hydrocephalus, a type of brain cancer that involves “the buildup of fluid” in the head, according to the Mayo Clinic. After dealing with the health crisis in private for the last few weeks, the host emotionally shared:

“I always noticed he had a cough and so I wanted to check it out. 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 fluid that was building in the baby’s head turned out to be a malignant tumor, leaving Zen with brain surgery and a shunt to drain the liquid. Sadly, things only became worse for the child at Thanksgiving when the “tumor began to grow a lot faster.” Cannon spent his last moments with his little one over the weekend, holding him for the final time on Sunday, with Nick expressing:

“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.”

Many of the young boy’s older step-siblings also came to support Zen in the hospital, something The Masked Singer host is incredibly “grateful” for. As readers know, Zen was Nick’s seventh child and the youngest of the bunch as he and Alyssa welcomed him in June. This is surely a tough loss for so many in Cannon’s extended family. Explaining why he decided to return to work so soon after the sudden loss, Nick insisted: