Famous Nick Cannon

Nick Cannon says he’s been diagnosed with a lupus-like autoimmune disease that contributed to his recent health scares.

The 31-year-old “America’s Got Talent” host tells People.com that the condition came to light after his hospitalization in January for kidney failure, as well as his treatment last month for two blood clots discovered in his lungs.

“The blood clot thing was probably the scariest because … I’ve known people who have passed away from that,” he told the magazine at a DJ gig Wednesday night in New York. “I thought I was getting better,” Cannon added, “and then that happened, so that kind of came out of nowhere.”

Cannon said that as far as he knows, no one else in his family suffers from the condition. “They kind of say [my] autoimmune [disease] is – like a lupus type of thing, but no one else in my family has it.”

For now, the husband of Mariah Carey and father of twins says he’s trying to take care of himself, put his health first and focus on recovery. “I feel blessed to be alive. If it wasn’t discovered, I don’t know [what would have happened].”