Nick Cannon is getting candid about his unorthodox fatherhood journey.

During an appearance on the morning radio show, The Breakfast Club, The Masked Singer host, 44, opened up about his process of becoming a dad of 12. Cannon said that welcoming his children the way that he did was a response to his trauma.

“It wasn’t like I was acting out. It was more of being careless, being frivolous with my process because I could do it, because I had the money [and] because I had the access to whoever and however I wanted to move,” he said. “Then, obviously, life happens as well, so it wasn’t like ‘Oh, I’m gonna go have 12 kids.’ It was more about like, ‘Yo, I’m gonna just live life and have fun and whatever happens happens. I can handle it.'”

“Being almost 45 now, I could sit back and like, yeah, if I would have thought the process through a little bit more and took time to actually do the inner work,” he continued. “Things might have been a little different in certain scenarios.”

When host Charlemagne the God asked Cannon if doing the inner work would have resulted in him potentially not having 12 kids, the Drumline star said, “I don’t know … because I’ve always said this, every child that I had was made out of love and there were strong relationships.”

“If I would have did the work [and] the healing after getting divorced, I probably would have took my time in a lot other scenarios and for whatever reason I thought that was the answer a lot of times, like ‘Oh, I’m gonna figure it out over here,’ ” he said. “Now, you’re leaving trauma every step of the way instead of fixing it from its origin.”

Cannon shares twins Moroccan and Monroe with ex-wife Mariah Carey; sons Golden Sagon and Rise Messiah Cannon and daughter Powerful Queen with Brittany Bell; twins Zion Mixolydian and Zillion Heir and daughter Beautiful Zeppelin with Abby De La Rosa; son Legendary Love with Bre Tiesi; and daughter Onyx Ice Cole with LaNisha Cole. Cannon is father to two children with Alyssa Scott — son Zen, who died at five months old in December 2021 after being diagnosed with brain cancer, and daughter Halo Marie Cannon.

As for expanding his family, Cannon told PEOPLE in March that he’s “pressing hold” on welcoming any more children. The Wild N’ Out creator explained that while he’s “not against it,” he won’t be welcoming any little ones any time soon.

“I really don’t know. I’m being honest. I’m having so much fun in this space right now, and the way my bank account is set up, I’m going to press hold on this 12 for right now,” he told PEOPLE. “But. I was just speaking of three years from now [or] five years from now, who knows? I’m not against it.”

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“There was a point in time where I was just like, ‘Nah, I’m done.’ And, then I was like, ‘Who am I to say that?’ ” he added. “It seemed like it was such an emphatic thing. I never imagined that I would have 12 kids. So, it’s one of those things where I love children. I love my life, and if it could keep going in the direction that it’s going, why not?”

While talking about his new late-night show with Extra‘s Mona Kosar Abdi in July, Cannon opened up about his personal life and his old dating habits. The dad of 12 said that being a father to five daughters has changed his outlook on how he approaches the dating scene, adding that he hopes to he can inspire his daughters to “learn from my mistakes and not date people like their dad.”

He explained, “When you have five daughters and you’re like, ‘All right, I at least want to be able to be true and honest,’ but like I can’t live the same life that I’ve always been living and attempt to right my wrongs in that sense of where like hopefully my daughters learn from my mistakes and not date people like their dad.”