Teddi Mellencamp Gives Update on Melanoma Battle (Exclusive)

Teddi Mellencamp is staying positive while she battles skin cancer.

“Extra’s” Jenn Lahmers spoke with Teddi about her melanoma diagnosis and how she hopes her story will help others.

Teddi said she’s “doing okay,” admitting, “I might get a little bit emotional just having this conversation right now.”

Mellencamp revealed that her doctors have found more melanomas. She said, “Right before I jumped on this Zoom, my doctor called and said that they found two more melanomas when they biopsied… It’s just been such a whirlwind for me. For me, that is why I have been openly talking up because it was something I took for granted for so many years.”

She went on, “I thought when I was at BravoCon I was coming home… and having the surgery… All of a sudden my husband started getting very quiet with me… Finally on my plane ride home, he goes, ‘I need to tell you, they canceled your surgery.’ ‘What do you mean? Why are you telling me now?’… Because there are so many melanomas in one location.”

While Teddi feels physically fine, she has six melanomas, adding, that they’re “all different levels, they’re stages, and levels.”

She is having them all removed and finding out whether it has spread to her lymph nodes.

When asked what prompted her to get checked out, Teddi shared, “I’ve always had these little white spots on my back, which I thought was my birthmarks… In March, I was running with Kyle Richards… and she says, ‘Hey, one of your spots is, like, black. You need to go to the dermatologist and get it checked.’ I’m like, ‘It’s whatever,’ and she’s like, ‘No, we’re going today.’ She, like, called our mutual friend’s doctor. We went in and they immediately biopsied it.”

Teddi has been open about her health with her children. She noted, “The conversations you have to have with your kids, that’s the trickiest part.”

The conversations have been educational ones. She explained, “This is a wakeup call for you guys that we are going to need to really have sunscreen multiple times a day. Even though you don’t like the bathing suits that cover your arms, this is what we are doing… but then they start to ask questions. Like Slate, my 10-year-old, said, ‘Mommy, is this the one where you will lose your hair?’ and I am like, ‘Right, no.’”

After seeing photos of Teddi post-surgery, Jenn went in for her own checkup, during which doctors found three moles that were “pre-melanoma.”

As for why it’s important for her to share her story, Teddi said, “There was something in me that just said, ‘Right now, your ability to share this with other people outweighs all the other stuff,’ because I have had so many women reach out to me…  [and say] ‘I haven’t gone to get a checkup my entire life’… I’m grateful that I have a platform that ultimately I can share my true story about it and give all the details that I can.”

Mellencamp’s diagnosis is bringing her closer to her mom. She commented, “My mom had an injury where she fell, she had a brain bleed… Then this happened to me… Since I have been an adult, we have had a relationship that needed mending and we are talking now more than ever. We both realized life is precious and I don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to say things and be there for her and vice versa.”

Teddi admitted they weren’t talking much before because of “residual anger.”

Despite her health, Teddi did enjoy herself at BravoCon. She said, “[I] had so much fun… I was like, ‘I’m going to go wild here,’ and I did.”