Nick Cannon Will Talk About Anything

It's about five minutes into my interview with Nick Cannon.

- Erica Hawkins

It's about five minutes into my interview with Nick Cannon. The star is slouched and relaxed on the couch next to me in a room backstage at Atlanta’s Center Stage Theater—wearing the trademark Wild ‘N Out black and red that are emblazoned on the show’s logo and also decorate the green room—when he mentions, “We’ll talk about anything. There’s nothing that’s off limits.” He's referring to how the comedians on the now-12th season of the MTV improv show refuse to shy from any area of discussion. (This proves true just an hour later as I watch from the VIP bleachers as cast members hilariously tear each other apart during a sketch called “Eat That Ass Up.”)

But as soon as he says this, my mind immediately goes to the conversation I’d had earlier that day as his publicist went about politely preparing me for our interview before quickly punctuating our polite chat with a quick “No questions on Mariah.” Then my mind went to yet another moment, a little bit after that, when one of the castmates was going off about how if someone wanted to quit the show, they should just go ahead and do it. I’d been sitting backstage for a while at that point, somewhere down the sprawling back halls of Atlanta’s Center Stage Theater, where they had been taping the upcoming 2019 season of the MTV show for the past two weeks. Someone in the room locked eyes with me cautiously, then asked if I was already recording. Unfortunately, I wasn’t.