Nick Cannon Says He’s an ‘Empty Broken Vessel’ Following Anti-Semitic Comments, Controversy

Nick Cannon is opening up about the hurt he caused with his anti-Semitic comments in an in-depth conversation with Rabbi Abraham Cooper on the latest episode of his Cannon Class podcast. After Cannon’s comments about the Jewish community in which he espoused hurtful conspiracy theories while talking with Public Enemy’s Professor Griff earlier this month, The Masked Singer host confronted his own intentions with the religious leader.

“I know how you could have taken many of the things that I said as hate and propaganda, but that was never my heart and intentions, I was talking about how amazing Black people were, but it hurt so many people that weren’t a part of that community while I was trying to encourage and uplift my own community,” he began, adding that he would never condone “hateful demagoguery,” but his decision to quote Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam. Farrakhan came from a place of looking at bringing Black men together peacefully from his own perspective.

After admittedly making a lot of people angry, Cannon asked Cooper to help educate him. “I’m asking to be corrected from your community. Give me books. Teach me. I’m an empty vessel — an empty broken vessel. Teach me. Fix me,” he said. “Lead me, that’s why I can say I love you for this opportunity because I know you’re catching it as well. Everybody is throwing hate at me right now. … I made the Jewish community mad. I made my community mad by apologizing. We should be allies because of our common oppression.”

Cooper said that “at this point,” he felt Cannon was sincere with his intention to learn and move forward. “If what I’m hearing is an interest and a commitment to want to do things together to move forward for the betterment of people, that’ll be the proof of the pudding,” he added.

This is not the first time Cannon has expressed his regrets after the initial interview with Griff prompted his firing from ViacomCBS. On July 15, he tweeted his “deepest and most sincere apologies to my Jewish sisters and brothers” for the “hurtful and divisive” statements he made. “They reinforced the worst stereotypes of a proud and magnificent people, and I feel ashamed of the uninformed and naïve place that these words came from,” Cannon continued, expressing gratitude to the Rabbis and community leaders who reached out “to help enlighten me, instead of chastising me.” He concluded, “I want to assure my Jewish friends, new and old, that this is only the beginning of my education — I am committed to deeper connections, more profound learning and strengthening the bond between our two cultures today and every day going forward.”