Mariah Carey Made Nick Cannon Wait Until Marriage Before Sleeping Together

Nick Cannon ’s persistence paid off when he pursued his ex-wife Mariah Carey . The pair dated for a short time before exchanging wedding vows. But before their marriage, Carey tested Cannon’s patience by making him wait to consummate his relationship with her.

Nick Cannon once reflected on his and Mariah Carey’s first night sleeping together

Cannon put in a lot of effort to win over Carey. He lured the singer in by making his feelings about her public whenever the opportunity presented itself. At the time, he was the only person who believed he’d end up dating the singer.

“At one point, I was like, ‘I’ma get Mariah Carey,’” Cannon once said according to People . “It turned from my celebrity crush to like, ‘Nah, she’s about to be my girlfriend.’ People were like, ‘You’re bugging. There’s no way you can get Mariah Carey.’ I was like, ‘Watch, I’m telling you.’”

Eventually, Cannon manifested his meeting with Carey, which would spark a relationship between the two .

“She had heard me speaking all of these positive, secret little nothings about her in interviews, and I remember seeing her backstage at the Teen Choice Awards, and she stops right in front of me. She’s like, ‘I heard all those nice things you been saying about me.’ I was like, ‘They’re true! Just give me an opportunity to make them come true!’ And she smiled, and they floated her off,” Cannon remembered.

Their time dating seemed to put more focus on getting to know one another instead of intimacy. Carey had an ironclad rule that she and Cannon couldn’t sleep together until after their marriage. But according to the actor, it was well worth the wait.

”On our wedding night, honeymoon style, in the Bahamas. That’s a real woman there, make you wait, til you got married. Seriously, 100 per cent,” he once told Power 106 (via Contact Music ). ”We didn’t [know if it would be good]. The first time I made love to my wife was on our wedding night. I’m a pleaser, I went in like, ‘Man, she’s gonna love this.’”

Nick Cannon felt closer to Mariah Carey after their break-up than even when they were married

Nick Cannon Once Panicked When He Learned Mariah Carey Was Really Giving Birth

Cannon and Carey eventually separated in 2014. In her memoir The Meaning of Mariah Carey , Carey shared that parenthood was one of the factors that brought the end to their relationship. They had twins in 2011, and juggling their parental responsibilities with their jobs eventually hurt their marriage .

“Making the necessary adult adjustments to being working parents in entertainment took its toll on our relationship, and the end of our marriage came as fast as it began,” she wrote.

Likewise, Cannon also felt that getting a divorce was the best thing to do for himself and the family.

“I feel like when two people are in a relationship it should be about growth,” he shared. “It should be a situation where everyone’s becoming a better human being in the relationship. So when you get to a point where there’s no longer any growth and you’re not bettering each other, I felt like it was probably best, especially for our children, since they’re the number one priority, if I could be the best human being and the best father from outside of that house.”

Despite their break up, however, the two remained on good terms. So much so that Cannon believed they’d grown closer in a different way.

“That’s always my dream girl,” he said. “Like, to me, just because we’re not intimate, I’m closer with her than probably I’ve ever been just based off of that’s my family, that’s the mother of my children.”