Nick Cannon reveals losing his virginity at 13 left him traumatized: ‘Too young’

Nick Cannon opens up about the first time he was intimate at age 13 with an older girl and the impact it had on him. 

Nick Cannon is reflecting on what he describes as a traumatizing first-time sexual encounter as a young teen.

On the latest episode of his podcast “Nick Cannon @ Night,” the 45-year-old actor and comedian revealed that when he first became intimate at the age of 13 with a girl who was 16, he was “too young.” 

“I was traumatized. I cried. I felt like I let Jesus down, cause it happened at the church lock-in,” Cannon recalled when the topic of how old the average American is when they lose their virginity came up. 

The “Wild’n Out” host said he and the girl involved were both somewhat pressured by other kids into the experience. 

“I was pressured into it. I was 13 and a half, and the girl was 16,” Cannon said, adding that he felt like he had to prove himself and that he was already experienced in the moment.

“And I wasn’t. So she laughed at me. They made fun of me … the whole gymnasium,” he recalled.

“I vowed that no woman would ever laugh at me again,” he teased.

The entertainer and father of 12, who has been open over the years about his sex life, including going celibate for two years, said after the experience, he wasn’t intimate with another person again until he was around the age of 16 or 17.

When one of his guests, Dr. Laura, teasingly said, “That explains so much,” he agreed.

“I know, that’s when Cannon was born,” he joked. 

Cannon, whether through the unconventional ways he has grown his family, or the NSFW topics he delves into on his podcast, or stunts like insuring his balls as a tongue-in-cheek nod to his fertility, has been very open about sexuality through the years. 

He’s also far from the first high-profile male to reveal he was introduced to sex at an early age and potentially before he was fully ready. In recent years, several Black men, in particular, have come out with experiences, including rapper YG, who released a song in 2025 titled “2004,” chronicling a time he was coerced into being intimate with an older woman. 

“90% of the people that I played it for — the men, the males — they all got similar stories,” he said around the time of its release. “That was the conversation everyone was having.”