Nick Cannon says his decision to have 12 kids was tied to how he coped with his divorce from Mariah Carey.

“A lot of it is the trauma that I was experiencing of not knowing how to handle divorce,” the 44-year-old said during an appearance on The Breakfast Club.

Cannon was then asked if having multiple children was a response to the split, and he agreed.

“It wasn’t like I was acting out. It was more of being careless, being frivolous with my process because I could do it because I had the money. Because I had the the access to whoever and however I wanted to move and you know, okay, they coming at me, they asking me opposed to like doing a mature thing and saying, hey, well, it probably makes more sense to do this and and then obviously life happens as well.”

Nick Cannon said his choices were about enjoying life rather than planning for the future. “It wasn’t like, oh, I’m going to go have 12 kids. It was more about like, yo, I’m going to just live life and have fun and whatever happens happens, I can handle it,” he said.

Now, reflecting as he approaches 45, Cannon admits he might have done things differently if he had taken more time to heal after his divorce. “If I would have thought the process through a little bit more and took time to actually do the inner work, things might have been a little different in certain scenarios.”

He, however, made it clear that his children were all born from meaningful connections. “Every child that I had was made out of love and there were strong relationships,” he said, while acknowledging that if he had prioritized healing, he “probably would have took [his] time in a lot of other scenarios.”

While juggling life with multiple families, Nick credits therapy for helping him grow. “Shouts out to all my therapists,” he said, revealing that he also does therapy alongside some of his kids and their mothers.

“I have family therapy with some of my kids, you know what I mean? Because there they have to understand that this is an unorthodox, non-traditional scenario and I want them to be in the healthiest space as possible,” Cannon added.