Father of 12 Nick Cannon tragically remembers late son on what would have been his fifth birthday

Nick Cannon has celebrated his late son’s birthday, Zen, who would be turning five.

The actor, rapper, and comedian is a father with 12 children, one of whom sadly passed away at just five months old after being diagnosed with brain cancer.

The San Diego-born TV personality has been upfront about the pain and grief he and Zen’s mother, Alyssa Scott, experienced with their son before having their daughter Halo Marie.

To celebrate the day of their son’s birth, the pair got together with their daughter and other family members to honour Zen for his 23 June birthday.

In pictures posted on social media, Nick and Alyssa can be seen dressed in white and standing on a beach with posters of Zen, as well as cutting a cake which appears to have an image of the baby on top.

Nick posted several pics from the celebrations, captioning his post with the 2 Corinthians 4:6 Bible verse as he wrote: “What a beautiful celebration of life for our Angel Zen Scott Cannon. ‘For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made His light shine in our hearts.’ — 2 Corinthians 4:6 Zen’s Light will forever shine in our hearts. We love you my son.”

In another post, posted on Zen’s birthday, Nick posted a number of pictures of his late son, writing: “6/23 will forever be a day of light! Turning our pain to purpose! We celebrate the life of our Young King Zen Scott Cannon! We honor our beautiful son and the precious moments we got to share in the physical and the constant energy we share in the Spirit daily. We are always reminded that 'To be absent from the body is to be present with the Most High' 2 Corinthians 5:8 We love you son.”

Nick shares Moroccan and Monroe with former wife Mariah Carey, who gave birth to the twins in 2011, but after their divorce was finalised in 2016, Nick went on to expand his family.

Nick then had another three children - Golden Sagon, Powerful Queen, and Rise Messiah - with Brittany Bell, a model.

Then he had another set of twins who were named Zion Mixolydian and Zillion Heir, as well as Beautiful Zepplin, who he had with social media influencer Abby De la Rosa.

The Wild 'N Out host also fathered Onyx Ice with Lanisha Cole and then Legendary Love Cannon with Selling Sunset star Bre Tiesi.