Teddi Mellencamp has been given 50/50 odds from her doctors of beating her cancer, she says.
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum and daughter of musician John Mellencamp opened up about the conversations she’s had with her doctors in a candid interview with Nightline that aired Thursday.
“I learned this isn’t the best question to ask if you’re doing immunotherapy, because immunotherapy has only been around 10 years,” Teddi, 43, said. “It’s one of my favorite things to ask is ‘How long I got? What are my chances?’ And they oftentimes say 50/50. 50/50? I wouldn’t buy a car that’s only gonna drive 50 percent of the time. I don’t want this.”
She continued, “And [the doctor’s] like, ‘No, it’s only because that’s how long immunotherapy has been around so that’s how long the study has worked.’ So that’s when I then try to find the positive.”
Since 2022, Teddi has been dealing with melanoma off and on, but in February she got the news that she had stage 4 melanoma, and it metastasized to her brain and lungs.
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During the interview, she was asked what she most wants people to know about her at this moment in her life. “I think the biggest thing is don’t take anything for granted,” she replied. “Normally, I’m used to running seven miles, today I’m barely walking one. But you know what? I’m here and that makes me feel good. These are special times that we get to do any of this.”
Still, Teddi admitted that she normally likes to feel in control. “This is completely out of my control, and for the first time, I’m like really scared,” she said.
But nevertheless, Teddi said she’s found humor in the situation, which helps her stay positive.
“If I didn’t find humor, I would cry,” she said. “Even with my kids, the other day, we kept forgetting something and we often go, ‘The tumors!’ It’s kind of the only way.”
Apparently, she’s not the only one in the family with a sense of humor: Teddi revealed on the most recent episode of her Two Ts in a Pod podcast that a prior phone conversation with her 73-year-old singer-songwriter father led to him trying to plan her final resting place in the family’s Indiana mausoleum. And during the conversation, she says he told her, “He goes, ‘You want to know the good news? Hot girls never die.’ That’s going on my tombstone.”
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Teddi was a cast member on Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills from seasons 8-10 between 2017 and 2020, and later returned as a guest on seasons 11, 12, and 13.
