Teddi Mellencamp Opens Up About Cancer Battle

Teddi Mellencamp is facing serious challenges after the latest setback in her cancer fight.

“I’m fighting for my life,” Mellencamp, the 43-year-old daughter of singer John Mellencamp, told Us Weekly in an article published on Wednesday. “But also for my family’s life and all the people I love.”

“I find out for sure exactly where we stand on June 1,” Mellencamp said of her treatment plan, as her cancer has now progressed to Stage 4. “If you need to do another round, if there’s any other surgery, if it’s the end. It’s a hard pill to swallow.”

The mother of three and “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” reality star began openly sharing her battle with melanoma in 2022, after her initial diagnosis.

After undergoing multiple surgeries to remove cancerous spots, her condition escalated in early 2025 when doctors discovered her melanoma had metastasized to her lungs and brain.

And while she’s always told her children “Moms always come back” when she has to leave the house, she told Us Weekly that she has “not said that line to them since I’ve been back [from the hospital].”

“They all know that I’m fighting the hardest I possibly can, but I haven’t said [it] because I don’t want to lie to them. And I don’t know,” she said.

Her kids are currently in therapy, as she said she’s “not equipped to fully handle this.”

“It is helping because they ask me questions that I probably wouldn’t have thought to give them answers to,” she said of her kids, Slate, 12; Cruz, 10 and Dove, 5.

She’s also found that sarcasm is helping her deal with the possibility of her own death.

“Everybody wants me to be super positive all the time,” she said. “One of my coping mechanisms is being sarcastic. I’d rather joke about it and have the best possible outcome than be completely in denial and have my heart broken.”

Mellencamp previously thought that she was cancer-free in 2022, after having multiple melanomas removed.

However, she continued to develop more melanomas and in 2025, her condition took a turn for the worse when doctors discovered tumors in her brain and lungs.

Just days after her initial sit-down with Us Weekly, Mellencamp revealed that an emergency MRI located four additional small tumors on her brain. She is continuing treatment with radiation and immunotherapy.