Nick Cannon clarifies ‘celibacy journey’ after confirming he is expecting eighth child

Nick Cannon has clarified whether he broke his “celibacy” after recently announcing that he is expecting his eighth child.

In October, the actor, 41, who confirmed this week that he is expecting a child with model Bre Tiesi, revealed that he was going to be “getting my celibacy on” and “chill out” during an appearance on the Drink Champs podcast.

“I have enough children, enough frolicking,” the comedian said at the time. “I’m good right now… I’m trying. I didn’t say I’m perfect. I love all my kids.”

During the appearance, Cannon, who shares 10-year-old twins Moroccan and Monroe with ex-wife Mariah Carey, four-year-old Golden Sagon and one-year-old Powerful Queen with Brittany Bell and seven-month-old twins, Zion and Zillion, with Abby De La Rosa, also added that he would be trying to remain celibate until at least 2022.

On Tuesday, the comedian, who also shared son Zen with Alyssa Scott before the five-month-old’s death from brain cancer in December, clarified whether he broke his celibacy during his talk-show The Nick Cannon Show, where he revealed that he had begun to abstain from sex after learning of Tiesi’s pregnancy.

“My therapist was one of the ones who said I should probably be celibate and the reason why is because I had shared that news about Bre being pregnant,” Cannon explained. “And then that was the reason why I started my celibacy journey back then.”

The actor then added: “So for anybody who’s thinking: ‘Oh he wasn’t celibate,’ I was!”

Cannon then shared photos from Tiesi’s gender reveal party over the weekend, explaining that learning about the pregnancy had made him feel like he was “out of control”.

“I felt like I was out of control and honestly, that celibacy did help me through the journey of getting one with myself, being able to deal with this,” he continued.

While he clarified that the pregnancy isn’t what had broken his celibacy, Cannon admitted that he is no longer celibate, but that he “almost made it to the New Year”.

Cannon’s clarification comes after he confirmed on an episode of his show earlier this week that he and Tiesi are expecting a baby later this year. While opening up about the upcoming arrival of his eighth child, the actor also spoke candidly about the death of his son last year, explaining that he’d known about Tiesi’s pregnancy for some time but wanted to keep it private while he and Scott grieved.

“And it was just one of those things like, you know, I didn’t know what to do,” he said, according to People. “I didn’t know what to say when I was dealing with Zen or to hold off. Even right now, that it came out yesterday, that wasn’t planned to talk about it.

“We wanted to, you know, hold on as long as we can, but it happened. We here and I’m with my family I get to discuss it, I get to be open.”