Nick Cannon has a permanent piece of artwork dedicated to his late "angel."
Just days after the talk-show host announced the devastating news that his 5-month-old baby boy, Zen, died after a battle with brain cancer, Nick revealed that he got a special tattoo in his son's honor.
"Last night, I got the opportunity to go get a tattoo of my son, Zen, as angel on my rib," Nick told the audience during the Dec. 10 episode of The Nick Cannon Show. Holding up a framed photo of the artwork, which features a drawing of his late son with a halo above the crown of his head, he added, "I'm still all bandaged up and it hurts right here, right now."
Explaining that process took over five hours, the actor shared, "It was actually a lot of pain, but it was so well worth it. I enjoyed every moment of the experience to forever have my son right here as my rib, right here on my side. My angel."
On Dec. 7, the Wild N' Out star shared the heartbreaking news of his son's passing with the audience at the start of The Nick Cannon Show. Nick and model Alyssa Scott welcomed baby Zen in late June.
Explaining that he and Alyssa took Zen to the doctor a while back for what they thought would be a normal checkup, Nick revealed that things quickly took a tragic turn.
"We thought it would be a routine process," he told the audience at the time. "And we went in just to check his sinuses, and they actually said his sinuses were pretty cool."
"But by the time we found out that he had another condition. And I think it was called, if I'm not mistaken, fluid that was building up in his head, and that was the cause," Nick added, referring to the condition hydrocephalus. "His head was starting to get big. When we found out it was more, they called it a malignant tumor in his head."
The following day, on Dec. 8, Zen's mom, Alyssa, penned a touching message dedicated to their late son's memory.
"These last 5 months we have been in this race together," she wrote in an Instagram post, featuring footage of Zen from the past few months. "We would hand the baton off to each other. You kept me going. It would be the middle of the night and you would smile at me. A surge of energy would fill my body and pure joy would radiate from within me. We were a team, both determined to see it through. It feels unbearable running without you now. I can't," adding that she will love her son "for eternity."