On Tuesday, Nick Cannon announced that his 5-month-old Zen has passed away from brain cancer.

Cannon shared the news with his audience on The Nick Cannon Show on Tuesday that he and his partner Alyssa Scott recently discovered that Zen was battling hydrocephalus. 

"Over the weekend, I lost my youngest son to a condition called hydrocephalus that was pretty much a malignant, invasive midline brain tumor, brain cancer," an emotional Cannon said. "It's tough."

Cannon said that he and his family noticed that Zen began to show signs of having breathing difficulties

"I always noticed he had a cough and so I wanted to check it out," he said. "He had this interesting breathing and by the time he was two months, I noticed he had this nice sized head too—a Cannon head. We didn’t think anything of it. But I wanted to take him to the doctor for his sinus and breathing. We thought it would be routine." 

Around Thanksgiving, Zen’s health began to decline rapidly, Cannon recalled.

"Ultimately, it was cancer in the brain and the tumor began to grow a lot faster,'' Cannon recalled. “And so we knew that time was...," he began before getting choked up. "This weekend I made a valid effort to spend the most quality time I could spend with Zen. We woke up on Sunday—I got to spend the weekend with him—and I woke up on Sunday and was like, 'I feel like I want to go to the water.' We got a chance to go to the ocean."

According to the Mayo Clinic, hydrocephalus "is the buildup of fluid in the cavities (ventricles) deep within the brain. The excess fluid increases the size of the ventricles and puts pressure on the brain."

Although Cannon will be taking time away from his show and the rest of his professional obligations, he wanted to express his feelings with his audience after the devastating loss.

“I didn't know how I was going to handle today," he told his audience. "But I wanted to grieve with my family."

We extend our prayers and condolences to Nick Cannon, Alyssa Scott, and their entire family.