Rock Icon’s Daughter Breaks Silence on Rumored Affair: ‘I Felt So Sick’ originally appeared on Parade.
After months of speculation, Teddi Mellencamp is addressing affair rumors head-on.
In the latest episode of The Jamie Kern Lima Show released on Tuesday, the 44-year-old former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills cast member opened up for the first time about her alleged affair with horse trainer Simon Schroeder — and how the fallout collided with her stage 4 cancer diagnosis and divorce from husband Edwin Arroyave.
“I’ve never talked about it at all, just because of the kids,” Mellencamp said on the podcast. “I’ve never wanted anybody to have a guarantee whether it happened or didn’t happen, but what I can say is, did I do things that hurt other people? Yes.”
The affair rumors first surfaced in November 2024, shortly before Mellencamp filed for divorce from Arroyave after 13 years of marriage. Days later, Schroeder’s now-ex-wife, Karli Schroeder, filed for divorce citing irreconcilable differences.
Mellencamp calls the experience one of the darkest times in her life.
“To this day, does it still hurt my heart and I wonder if that’s why I got cancer? Yes, like it was my payback,” she said, referencing her stage 4 melanoma, which had metastasized to her brain and lungs by February 2025.
Visibly emotional, Mellencamp reflected on the ripple effect of her actions: “You’re trying to minimize everybody’s pain. You end up maximizing it. Because now not only do you have yourself, you have your significant other, your kids, the other person’s significant other, their kids.”
Schroeder has not publicly addressed the rumors. Until now, Mellencamp had largely avoided commenting on the affair speculation.
Mellencamp emphasized that she was in a fragile state of mind at the time and deeply unwell — something she now sees in hindsight.
“I think I was so broken as a human being during that part of my life that I did things out of my better judgment,” she said. “I felt so much pain. I felt so sick. I didn’t go to the doctors… and the pain was so much that I had gotten to the point of almost hating waking up in the morning.”
She noted that the affair was a convergence of chaos she didn’t know how to manage.
“I do think a bunch of things happened in my life all around the same time, and I had zero control of any of them. Like I just was running around like a chicken with my head cut off,” Mellencamp explained.
Despite everything, Mellencamp said she and Arroyave remain close.
“I always knew he’d do the right thing by me,” she said of Arroyave, adding that the two are still living in the same house and co-parenting their children. “We don’t argue… I just want him to be happy, and I want our kids to be happy.”
At one point, she referred to Arroyave as her “ex-husband,” but clarified that their situation is complicated: “I don’t know what you call somebody you were married to, then you filed for divorce, and then you got cancer, so then everything went on hold.”
With her health battle ongoing and her personal life in transition, she said the pain still lingers — but she’s working to own her part in the past.
“The wreckage doesn’t happen on its own,” she said. “So many people are hurt in the wreckage.”
Rock Icon’s Daughter Breaks Silence on Rumored Affair: ‘I Felt So Sick’ first appeared on Parade on Aug 5, 2025
This story was originally reported by Parade on Aug 5, 2025, where it first appeared.
