An emotional Teddi Mellencamp addressed allegations that an affair with her horse trainer led to the breakdown of her marriage to Edwin Arroyave.
The former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star appeared to admit to the infidelity in an interview on Jamie Kern Lima’s podcast uploaded on Tuesday, during which she tearfully wondered if her 2022 diagnosis of stage 4 melanoma was “payback” for the perceived affair.
“I’ve never talked about it at all, just because of the kids, and I’ve never wanted anybody to have a guarantee whether it happened or didn’t happen,” Mellencamp said. “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 if that’s why it got cancer? Yes, like it was my payback,” she continued. “Nothing goes without payment.”
Of the excessive tabloid headlines, “it was everywhere,” Mellencamp said. “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. So many people are hurt in the wreckage. The wreckage doesn’t happen on its own.”
Mellencamp offered, “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.”
Edwin Arroyave/ Instagram
Edwin Arroyave and Teddi Mellencamp
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Mellencamp, best known for appearing on RHOBH between seasons 8 and 13, filed for divorce from Arroyave in late 2024 after 13 years of marriage, citing irreconcilable differences amid rumors that both had been unfaithful. They share three children together.
In the first portion of the two-part interview with Lima, Mellencamp said she had no animosity towards her estranged husband, sharing that Arroyave put divorce proceedings on hold amid her winding cancer journey. “Edwin will always be my friend,” Mellencamp said. “He was the person that I called to take me to the hospital.”
“If he wanted to, he could still be filing and finishing this divorce off right now,” Mellencamp continued. “But my dad and family just said like, ‘I don’t think this is the right thing for her to try to navigate right now or figure out.’ It was like, ‘Yeah, of course. No, we’ll wait. We’ll wait until she’s better, and then we’ll figure it out.'”
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