Following the tragic death of his 5-month-old son Zen on December 5, Nick Cannon, 41, heard from his ex-wife Mariah Carey, 52. “Mariah has reached out to Nick in private to express her deepest and most sincere condolences for the loss of his son,” a source close to the singer EXCLUSIVELY tells HollywoodLife. “She is not expected to say anything about it publicly and she will not discuss it if asked about it because Mariah prefers to keep these types of matters private.”
The source also said that while things “did not work out” between Mariah and Nick, the exes — who share 10-year-old twins Monroe and Moroccan — “have a wonderful coparenting situation and she could not be any more pleased with how that is going.” The insider added, “Nick plays an active role in the lives of Monroe and Moroccan and he is a good father. For the time that Zen was alive, Mariah knows that Nick gave that boy all of the love in the world because that is the kind of man he is when it comes to his kids.”
HL has reached out to Mariah’s rep, but we haven’t heard back. The “One Sweet Day” songstress never got remarried after her split from Nick in 2014, and she also hasn’t had any more kids. Nick, meanwhile, has since welcomed five children with three different women. One of those kids was his baby boy Zen, whom he shared with model Alyssa Scott.
On Dec. 7, Nick announced on his radio show that Zen passed away of a brain tumor two days prior. The Masked Singer host revealed that the tumor started to grow quickly at the end of November, and that he was able to be by his son’s side when Zen died. Alyssa initially mourned Zen’s death by sharing short videos of her baby boy to her Instagram Story. The following day, Alyssa shared a video tribute to Zen alongside a heartbreaking message. It read in part, “The soreness I felt in my arm from holding you is slowly fading away. It’s a painful reminder that you are no longer here. I caught myself looking in the backseat as I was driving only to see the mirror no longer reflecting your perfect face back at me.”