Teddi Mellencamp is reflecting on her stage 4 cancer diagnosis amid troubles in her marriage.
The “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” alum detailed her thought process during an Aug. 4 episode of “The Jamie Kern Lima Show” about reports she had an affair with her horse trainer while married to her husband Edwin Arroyave.
Mellencamp told Lima in the interview she didn’t want anyone to have a “guarantee” whether an affair happened just “because of the kids.”
Mellencamp shares four kids with the home security entrepreneur: Slate, Cruz, and Dove, plus stepdaughter Bella. After she filed for divorce in November, Arroyave and Mellencamp hit pause on their split amid her cancer battle.
“But what I can say is, did I do things that hurt other people? Yes. To this day, does it still hurt my heart and I wonder that’s why I got cancer? Yes,” Mellencamp told Lima through tears. “Like it was my payback.” She added that “nothing goes without payment, I guess.”
The comments come as Mellencamp is currently battling stage 4 melanoma, a type of skin cancer, that metastasized to her lungs and brain. When asked about her prognosis on the first part of her appearance on “Jamie Kern Lima,” which aired July 28, Mellencamp said she “would say probably 50-50.”
“It was everywhere and you know, you’re trying to … minimize everybody’s pain, (and) you end up maximizing it,” Mellencamp said of the situation. “So many people are hurt in the wreckage, but I can say this from knowing, the wreckage doesn’t happen on its own.”
Teddi Mellencamp addresses husband Edwin Arroyave’s affair
In the interview, Mellencamp also revealed more about an affair Arroyave had 10 years ago and confirmed that it was “with somebody I knew.”
“I’m not saying that I didn’t make huge mistakes and in my marriage,” Mellencamp said, but she said Arroyave’s affair “broke me.”
The daughter of rock legend John Mellencamp debuted as a main cast member on the Bravo reality show “RHOBH” in 2017 – just after finding out news of the affair – and she starred on the show until 2020.
“That was the first time in my life where I was like, ‘How will I show up every day with a smile on my face and raise these kids and be this perfect wife and start a television show?'” Mellencamp said.
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Mellencamp continued: “Or if people say, why do you seem different than when you were on your first season of ‘Housewives’? Like when we listen to your podcast? And I never really open up about it, but that’s why, that’s what I was going through season, my first season on ‘Housewives.'” Despite being a brief fan favorite, Mellencamp was the subject of backlash from some viewers for her onscreen behavior.
“That’s what I was going through,” Mellencamp told Lima. “So people say, ‘Oh, you seem kind of quiet,’ or ‘You’re kind of passive,’ or ‘But that’s not really who you are.’ And I was like, well, ‘I wasn’t faking who I was, I was coping.'”
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Mellencamp told Lima that she “was coping and I was so scared that someone was going to find out and ruin my family’s life,” adding that she told her best friend about the affair the day she found out.
Mellencamp said she found out about it when the individual her husband was having an affair with “called me and told me,” and “it was a couple days before filming” her first season of “Housewives.”
Mellencamp said it was a financial reason “why the person was coming forward, and that was like even more heart-wrenching because I was like, ‘You’d be willing to do this to my family for money and not even a lot of it,'” she told Lima.
The popular “Two Ts” podcaster didn’t reveal the affair on the drama-filled franchise known for outrageous opulence and star-studded casting additions.
Contributing: KiMi Robinson, David Oliver
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Teddi Mellencamp cancer conversation prompts tears amid affair rumors
