The TV personality also touched on the difficulties of co-parenting with the five mothers of his children.
Nick Cannon is "a work in progress."
The daytime talk show host and TV personality shared a part of his therapy session with Dr. Laura Berman, where he admitted that there is still a "heavy guilt" over not spending enough time with his late son, Zen, and his other children. Zen, whom he shared with Alyssa Scott, was only five months old when he died of a brain tumor in December.
"I am a work in progress and therapy has been an important tool in helping learn and grow and navigate through my unconventional personal life," Cannon shared on Wednesday's The Nick Cannon Show, before sharing a snippet of his session with his therapist.
"One thing that keeps me up at night, there's this heavy, heavy guilt with the fact that I didn't get to spend time like I really wanted to with Zen. That I have other children even in a similar age that I was like, 'OK, I'm guilty that I'm not there every day. I'm guilty that the mothers of my children yearn for more and I can only give so much.'"
"I walk around with a backpack full of guilt," Cannon, who is father to soon-to-be eight children, said. "But at least I know the harder that I work, then it makes the guilt easier to deal with."
Cannon added that providing for his family and working is what helps elevate the guilt, whereas if he's not working or "spending time with the young lady," he feels the guiltiest.
Cannon also touched on his relationships with the five mothers of his children, adding that he and ex-wife Mariah Carey "co-parent very well."
"She and I, we're really great friends and she's kind of taught me so much," he said of the singer, whom he shares 10-year-old twins Moroccan and Monroe with.
Cannon is also dad to 4-year-old Golden "Sagon" and 13-month-old Powerful Queen with Brittany Bell, and 7-month-old twins Zion Mixolydian and Zillion Heir with Abby De La Rosa. He's expecting his eighth child with Brie Tiesi.
While he's not romantically involved with Carey, Cannon said that he's still intimate with the other mothers of his children. "I think they have to [know that]. I think the world knows," he said. "I think that's what I struggle with because clearly if I care for someone, if I have a child with someone, there has been intimacy. And there probably will continue to be intimacy because there's true, authentic love there."
But he did admit that he has struggled with co-parenting because of his intimacy with the women. "And it's easy to say, 'Look, let's just focus on our child or children,' and then what ends up happening…then one good night at Nobu and the sake gets going…that chemistry."
Calling himself a hopeless romantic, he said that "some of the women that I'm involved with deal with it better than others. I think they're all secure in themselves to even have to deal with a person like me."
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