Jason Merritt/Getty Images for Playboy

Nick Cannon looked relaxed as he hosted a listening party for his music artist ItsaMovie, a 20-year-old Atlanta-area native, Tuesday night at M Bar, located on historic Auburn Avenue in Atlanta. Despite reports of his health challenges, Cannon, who just became a dad again to a third child, a son named Golden, looked well.




“I figure everybody’s got to deal with something, and I feel like what don’t kill you only makes you stronger,” he told The Root regarding his ongoing battle with lupus. “I feel like I’ve been blessed enough to wake up each and every day to be as strong as I possibly can. Any diagnosis and all of that stuff, I don’t subscribe to it.”

And no longer hosting NBC’s popular variety show America’s Got Talent seemed furthest from his mind. “I always try to tell people ‘There’s no job that defines me,’” shared Cannon, who, in 2009, founded NCredible Entertainment, an umbrella of diverse interests that include television shows, films, music and more. Cannon left the show after NBC reportedly got upset over some of his jokes in his Showtime comedy special.


“So when people start to hang stuff over your head and don’t give you the proper respect that you deserve, you let them have that,” he continued. “There’s no love lost, but I always tell people, ‘You can’t buy a boss.’ I got so many other verticals and activations that we’re operating under right now that that was just a small thing to me.”

Back in January, the paid streaming service YouTube Red scooped up King of the Dancehall, the film Cannon wrote, directed, produced and starred in that screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, to air later this year. And with a little more free time on his hands, Cannon is prepping another film.

“We’re getting ready to start this next one called She Ball that Birdman and I are producing,” he shared. “It’s a basketball movie surrounding the inner city in Los Angeles, but the lead character is a female.”