“America’s Got Talent” host Nick Cannon says he’s got a “lupus-like” autoimmune disease and that he’s lucky to be alive following two health scares.
Earlier this year, Cannon, 31, who’s married to Mariah Carey, was hospitalized for what Carey called “partial kidney failure.” A few weeks later, he was diagnosed with blood clots in his lungs.
The blood clot thing was probably the scariest because ... I've known people who have passed away from that," Cannon told People magazine. “I thought I was getting better, and then that happened, so that kind of came out of nowhere."
Because of his health problems, Cannon stepped down from his radio show, “Rollin’ With Nick Cannon,” in February. This week, he told Robin Roberts on “Good Morning America” that he has a “rare form of lupus that’s attacking my kidneys. “The technical term is lupus nephritis.”
Lupus nephritis is related to lupus erythematosus, an autoimmune disorder in which the body’s immune system attacks healthy tissue. With lupus nephritis, there’s a particular danger to the kidneys. In a worst-case scenario, sufferers face a loss of kidney function, meaning either ongoing dialysis or a kidney transplant.
