Nick Cannon was able to fight through lupus with the support of his then-wife, Mariah Carey, after being diagnosed in 2012.
Although the two have been divorced since 2016 after eight years of marriage and twins, Morocco and Monroe, Cannon had nothing but kind words to say about Carey on The Pivot Podcast.
In the show's latest episode, which premiered on Friday (June 14), Cannon was asked by co-host Ryan Clark about having Carey as a "superwoman" upon his diagnosis. At the time, their children were still infants.
"It was amazing, man," Cannon replied. "I think that was probably some of our closest times, too. That was 2012, and really, our kids weren't even a year [old] yet. So I'm watching her be mom for the first time and doing a phenomenal job. She's already nurturing them and then she has to turn around and nurture me in probably the most confusing scariest time of my life. Because I'm diagnosed with something that they're telling me could be terminally ill."
"I'm having pulmonary embolisms and getting rushed back and forth to the hospital, spending time in the hospital a month at a time–I'm like, I'm about to check out and I'm a new dad. Mariah still gotta be Mariah,'" he continued.
Cannon described the experience of him having to lean on "faith more than anything," and that it marked a "turning point" in him wanting him to "establish my purpose."
"I'm like, 'Once I get out of this bed, once I get back to normal, once I get healthy again, I'm about to live life like I've never lived it before,' where before that I was probably a little bit more complacent and just enjoying, like, Oh my God, I'm a dad. I'm in my dream relationship. I don't ever have to work again,'" said Cannon.
Cannon mentioned that Carey talked about the situation in her memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, and referenced it in her 2014 song, "Faded."
"I was always running and always going but probably not paying attention to the true things and having that empathy and compassion in those moments," Cannon reflected. "And so in hindsight, I was like, 'Ooh, that's where it started.'"
As for being on par with Carey status-wise, Cannon felt that he had to prove that he had "just as much hustle," although he'd been in entertainment since he was a teen. When co-host Channing Crowder joked that Cannon had become "number two" in the marriage, Cannon said it "fucked me up" and prompted him to get Carey's first name tattooed on his back.
"Clearly ain't nothing I could buy her that's going to impress her," Cannon said. "She's who she is. That's probably why I got the big-ass 'Mariah' tatt on my back. It was more like trying to show, 'This is how I can love you and being there and being able to create experiences that weren't about monetary gain or were weren't about being the provider. But I think, psychologically, it definitely did something to me to be like, 'Man I'm not the provider.'"
But since Cannon and Carey's divorce, the Wild'n Out host has felt it necessary to be "the provider for everybody," which probably explains why he now has 12 children.
