Signs - including $2.5M ring - point to Carey-Cannon hitching

NEW YORK - Nick Cannon is cast as Mariah Carey's lover in her new video - but has the superstar diva given the young actor a considerably bigger role in real life?

According to several published reports, Carey, 38, married Cannon, 27, on Wednesday. Neither Carey's publicist nor Cannon's manager returned requests for comment.

Word that the two were seeing each other first surfaced in the past few weeks. Last Saturday, Carey was seen sporting a huge diamond ring on her finger at the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of her movie, "Tennessee," in which she plays a waitress. Cannon was at her side at the party.

Latina.com was first to report that the two got married, at Carey's home in the Bahamas. Friday's New York Post also had the pair wed. People magazine on its Web site Friday quoted a clergyman, Bishop Clifford Petty of the National Church of God in the Caribbean, as saying that he presided over the wedding. E Online quoted a relative of Cannon's as saying that he confirmed the news to family.

"He called us and told us all about it," Linda Cannon, identified simply as a family member, was quoted telling E. "We are happy for him. If that is what he wants, then we are happy for him.

Cannon has put out a rap album but is best known for his role in the movie "Drumline" and a Nickelodeon TV series. He's featured in Carey's upcoming video for "Bye Bye."

Famed jeweler Jacob & Co. was quick to publicize its apparent role in the reputed union with a news release touting the ring that Cannon reportedly gave Carey. It is described as featuring "a square, emerald-cut, fancy light-pink diamond as the center stone, surrounded by 58 intense pink diamonds and two half-moon diamonds on each side.

"The total carat weight of the ring - center stone is 10 carats - is a jaw-dropping 17 carats with a value of $2.5 million."

Cannon, who has previously romanced singer Christina Milian and voluptuous reality star Kim Kardashian, last year gave a 15-carat stone to Victoria's Secret model Selita Ebanks as he proposed in grand fashion - on the Jumbotron in New York's Times Square. They split just a few months later. *