Nick Cannon explains choice to forgo son's chemotherapy: 'I didn't want him to suffer'

Nick Cannon had to make a tough decision along with the mother of his now-deceased 5-month-old son, who died last week of cancer. The comedian and TV personality said in a new interview out Tuesday that the parents opted to skip chemotherapy treatments to give the boy as comfortable a life as possible in the time they had with him. Cannon and Alyssa Scott took baby Zen to a doctor because the child wasn't breathing regularly and had a persistent cough. At two-months old, Zen was diagnosed with brain cancer. The decision came about relatively quickly, Cannon, 41, said. "We were having quality-of-life conversations," the TV star told People magazine. "We could have had that existence where he would've had to live in the hospital, hooked up to machines, for the rest of the time." "From someone who's had to deal with chemotherapy before, I know that pain. To see that happen to a 2-month-old, I didn't want that. I didn't want him to suffer," Cannon said. Zen's condition worsened over Thanksgiving weekend, going several seconds between breaths. On Dec. 5, Zen died. A teary Cannon shared the news on his TV talk show Dec. 7. "This weekend, I made a valid effort to spend the most quality time I could spend with Zen," Cannon said on the show, noting he and Scott took the baby to the ocean one last time before his death. "Not only did we get to see the sun rise, but we got to see the sun set, too," Cannon said. ____ ©2021 New York Daily News. Visit at nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.