Nick Cannon recently admitted he was insecure being known as ex Mariah Carey’s ‘Man’ during their marriage.
“I didn’t actually really care what the world thought because the perception, you know, that is what it is. People are going to love you one day, hate you the next day,” Cannon said during the episode. “I could care less about that. … But going to myself with that pressure of, ‘Who am I?’ ”
“I got married in my 20s, you know what I mean? To the biggest star in the world,” he added.
“My trajectory was here,” he said, gesturing downwards, “and then hers — she’s already in a different stratosphere.”
According to Cannon, he struggled to have his own identity outside of their relationship, although he acknowledged that he got “comfortable” with Carey, joking that “she’s got islands and I’m waking up at noon and people bringing me steaks on a platter.”
“I would lay up at night thinking, like, ‘Is is this who I am? Am I Mariah’s man? Is that what my life is supposed to be?’ ” Cannon said. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”
The actor also said he struggled with his masculinity and the “hierarchy” of their family after the pair welcomed their two children, twins Moroccan and Monroe, in April 2011.
“I’m carrying a purse, the diaper bag and, you know, I’m standing on the corner like, ‘Wait.’ She’s rocking being the alpha,” Cannon continued, agreeing when the podcast’s host acknowledged, “She deserves it.”
“I believe she needs a dude like that. I’m just not that dude,” Cannon added.
Nick Cannon and Mariah Carey first romantically connected in early 2008 when the actor starred in the singer’s “Bye Bye” music video. After just a few months of dating, they secretly married in May 2008.
In 2014, they announced they were divorcing after six years of marriage.