Teddi Mellencamp has embraced her sense of humor while battling cancer.
“I have to. If I didn’t find humor, I would cry,” Mellencamp told ABC News in an interview that aired in April 2025. “Even with my kids, like, the other day we kept forgetting something. Then, all of sudden, we’d go, ‘The tumors.’ It’s, kind of, the only way because, otherwise, I’d just be crying all the time.”
Mellencamp, who shares three children with estranged husband Edwin Arroyave, announced in early 2025 that she underwent brain surgery after doctors found multiple malignant tumors. She needed additional treatment to manage the ones that were not able to be surgically removed, but through it all, Mellencamp tried to keep up a sense of levity with her friends and family.
“One of my coping mechanisms is being sarcastic,” Mellencamp told Us Weekly in her April 2025 cover story. “Sometimes I feel like constant positivity can be toxic for me at least because I would rather joke about it and then have the best possible outcome than be completely in denial about it and then have my heart broken.”
Keep scrolling for more on how Mellencamp uses humor to deal with her cancer battle:
A Little Star Power
In her exclusive Us Weekly cover story, Mellencamp teased how she and former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills costar Kyle Richards first discussed her diagnosis.
“We call Kyle and we’re like, ‘How do we get into Cedars [Sinai]?’” Mellencamp joked, referring to the Los Angeles-area hospital. “She called around and found a way for us to get in. She’s like, ‘But you need to get there by 9:00. And I’m like, ‘It’s 8:22 and we’re in Tarzana.’ So, I had to just check myself right out of the Tarzana Hospital. I tell the doctor, ‘I’m so appreciative to you, but my friend got me in.’ He’s like, ‘But I couldn’t get you in yet. Are you sure you can get in?’ I’m like, ‘Yes, I just have to be there by 9.’ Kyle saved the day.”
According to Mellencamp, Richards spoke to Nancy Davis — the mother of Brandon Davis, who is married to actress Ashley Benson after 2000s romances with Mischa Barton and Lindsay Lohan — for help.
“Nancy Davis was the one to get me in,” Mellencamp told Us. “So, thank you, Nancy Davis. I’ve never met you, but you got me into Cedars … [and] within 24 hours, an incredible surgeon was able to remove four term tumors from my brain.”
A New Normal
Mellencamp joked to Us that she initially thought her recovery might feel like one for plastic surgery.
“The toll is different. I thought it was gonna feel, like, how I felt after my neck lift,” she said. “But it didn’t. The prednisone just messed that up, but no, it actually takes a couple days, and then it’ll hit you pretty hard.”
Trying a New Look
Mellencamp debuted a long blonde wig via Instagram in April 2025.
“Does this Megalodon tooth make me look like I’m dating @relationshep or trying to get on Southern Charm?” she wrote via Instagram, noting the wig and shark-tooth necklace were presents from childhood friend Shep Rose.
She previously told Us with a laugh that she was “so over” her pixie cut.
“Because they had to put the little drains in, I had these holes in my hair and so that’s why we ended up shaving it,” Mellencamp said weeks earlier. “But it then became news to me as post-radiation, you lose chunks of your hair anyway, so I’m gonna have to do a second shave. [My son], Cruz, made it a little better ‘cause he is like, ‘Mom, we can get all the same haircuts.’”
She added, “I’m like, ‘That’s so great for you. That’s terrible news for me.’ We can bond over it.”
Checking Memory Function
In her April 2025 interview with ABC News, Mellencamp revealed how doctors tried to check her memory.
“There’s this one lady and every day she’d come in and ask me the date. I’d be like, ‘Please ask me things I know,’” she quipped to host Deborah Roberts. “Ask me about pop culture, ask me about all of Angelina Jolie’s kids’ names.”
Looking at the Odds
“One of my favorite things to ask is ‘How long I got?’ or ‘What are my chances?‘” she quipped to ABC in April 2025. “They oftentimes say 50/50. ‘50/50? I wouldn’t buy a car that’s only going to drive 50 percent of the time. I don’t want this.’ And he’s like, ‘No, it’s only because that’s how long immunotherapy has been around and how long the study has worked.’ That’s why I try and find the positive.”
Reminders of Her Mortality
In her Us cover story, Mellencamp quipped that she doesn’t “have many feelings” about the possibility of her death.
“Everybody thinks that there, there’s a moment in treatment, but when you have brain surgery, you’re not really there. Like my dad [John Mellencamp] came, all my siblings came. I had friends from all over the country come visit,” she said. “Edwin was on a mission to make sure every single person he knows that I, like, love and care about came to visit me. I don’t remember one person.”
Teddi continued, “I got this message finally sent to me on, like, somebody forwarded me a Facebook and I was like, ‘Hold on, she was there?’ There’s just certain things that your brain doesn’t comprehend. I remember things that annoy me, like, once they put the drain in my brain, I was really not happy about that.”
According to Teddi, doctors put in what she called “white little handcuffs” that are called reminders to help her memory.
“They like to call them reminders. I’m like, ‘They’re not reminders. These little white things that are attached to myself like these are not reminders. Please, I promise I won’t touch my head. I’ll have somebody watch me, I won’t touch my head,’” she added. “I’m like, ‘If I ever see those white reminders again.’ … They’re like, ‘Sometimes you seemed like you were totally with it and you were in on a joke and sometimes you were just a hot mess express and could not be reasoned with.’”
Divorce on Hold
While Teddi filed for divorce from Arroyave in November 2024, they put the proceedings on the back burner.
“The second that I was diagnosed, he completely changed, and he has been there for me a 100 percent,” Teddi told Us. “He’s been there for the kids and we’re back to laughing. We call the divorce ‘Chronicles’ because, you know, I’m not even allowed to drive. So like, if I wanna go work out, I’m like, ‘Hey, what time are you working out tomorrow?’ And like, [I] still don’t set [an] alarm clock. So I have to go knock on [his] bedroom door or [say] like, ‘You’re still using my nice shampoo and conditioner in my room. That’s my room now, that is my Kerastase.’”
She added, “I can’t complain about it because it was all the things that I loved about our marriage, but without all the problems.”
Supporting the Kids
“I’m paying for therapy, [and] by the way, insurance doesn’t cover it,” she told Us. “I am paying for therapy every Friday. I’m like, ‘I’m not equipped to fully handle this. You’re a professional. Here’s some money. Help.’ Then they can come out and it’s actually helping because then they come and ask me questions that I probably wouldn’t have thought to give them.”
Teddi stressed that she wants to show her kids that she’s “gonna fight really hard” to beat the cancer.
“I can’t imagine my life without them,” she added. “I’m gonna do everything I possibly can no matter how mean it makes me.”
A Surprise Gift
Teddi revealed on her “Two T’s in a Pod” podcast that she was surprised former frenemy Vicki Gunvalson sent her a care package post-surgery.
“My favorite part about Vicki reaching out is she sent a Housewives coloring book that I’m not in,” Teddi told Us. “Of course I’m not in it, but, like, I’m not in it, Erika [Jayne]’s not in it [and] Tamra [Judge]’s not in it, [but Vicki is] on the cover.”
A Helpful PSA
“Get life insurance early,” she told Us. “Go ahead and zip right on over and get it now.”
