Nick Cannon and Mariah Carey have been able to remain on friendly terms nearly a decade after their divorce.
“We were able to, kind of, move on and be amicable and be the best parents we can,” Cannon, 45, exclusively shared in his Us cover story ahead of his upcoming Wild ‘N Out Tour. “And, like, to this day, man, we talk almost every day or every other day or, you know, just specifically just about the kids.”
He continued, “She knows how to hold on to her privacy in a way that you know. You feel like you know her, you feel like you understand, but she keeps all the things that are meaningful to her to herself.”
Cannon and Carey, 57, were married from 2008 to 2016, during which period they welcomed twins Moroccan and Monroe, now 15. (Cannon is also a father of 10 younger children from subsequent relationships. One of his sons, Zen, died from brain cancer at 5 months old in December 2021.)
“I learned so much. I always say Mariah Carey was my greatest friend and my greatest teacher all at the same time,” Cannon added. “I mean, showed me aspects of the world that I had never seen before and probably would never see again.”
Cannon, who stressed that he and Carey didn’t have a “messy” or “difficult” divorce, has since taken core lessons from his past marriage.
“What I learned the most from her is how to hold on to the things that are true and to create your own spaces and not let outside energy infiltrate, like, I’ve never seen somebody just really just operate on their own frequency, and it’s always so positive and optimistic,” Cannon said of the iconic signer. “[With] all that she’s been through in her life, I think that keeps her going. I mean, her faith and in her ability to just block out negative energy. I’ve never seen anybody else do that.”
Cannon coparents his twins with Carey while also trying to split his time equally between his other kids.
“We gotta operate as a unit, but it’s definitely departmentalized. Every mother parents differently, but when it comes to me, I’m non confrontational, which isn’t always a good thing,” he acknowledged. “I’m cool, and I don’t take anything seriously, so it’s one of those things, like, I’m either cracking a joke or just being like, ‘All right, it is what it is.’ I think it allows me to keep the stress down.”
With Monroe and Moroccan, Cannon has also gotten a glimpse at their early interests in following in both of their famous parents’ footsteps.
“My daughter Monroe, she’s 15, [and] she wants to either go to Pepperdine or NYU in their theater program,” he told Us. “She can be whatever she wants to be, you know what I mean, but the fact that she wants to go in that space, I’m like, ‘Yo, find the love of it first. You don’t necessarily want to be a movie star. You want to be a great actress.’”
He added, “If we can, kind of, just focus on the arts and be good at it, then whatever you want to do with it, sky’s the limit, so that’s what I encourage my kids to do. So, do as many school plays and recitals and all of that stuff as you want, and then you cultivate it, and when it’s time to show it to the world, be ready. But we got to have fun doing it. It’s not a job, it’s a hobby.”
For more from Cannon, pick up the new issue of Us, on newsstands now.
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