Teddi Mellencamp is finally addressing her alleged infidelity.
The “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” alum, 44, appeared on Tuesday’s episode of “The Jamie Kern Lima Show” and opened up about her alleged affair with her horse trainer, Simon Schroeder, for the first time.
“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, but what I can say is, did I do things that hurt other people? Yes,” Mellencamp said on the podcast.
“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. “So nothing goes without payment.”
In Nov., news broke that Mellencamp allegedly cheated on her husband of 13 years, Edwin Arroyave, with her horse trainer, who was also married at the time.
That same month, Mellencamp filed for divorce from Arroyave, 48, with whom she shares daughter Slate, 12, son Cruz, 10, and daughter Dove, 5.
The estranged couple have temporarily halted their divorce proceedings while Mellencamp battles stage 4 cancer.
“However long it was, it was all over the press, it was everywhere,” Mellencamp told Kern Lima, 48. “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 former Bravo star continued. “But I can say this from knowing — the wreckage doesn’t happen on its own. I never had happened to me.”
Mellencamp explained that she “was so broken as a human being during that part of my life that I did things out of my better judgement.”
“I think I was so sick during that stage. I was looking for comfort anywhere I could get it,” she shared. “I felt so much pain. I felt so sick. I didn’t go to the doctors. I just felt some certain kind of way. And the pain was so much that I had gotten to the point of like, almost hating waking up in the morning, which I had never been that kind of person. I wasn’t myself.”
Mellencamp clarified that she wasn’t blaming being sick for her alleged affair.
“But 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,” she stated. “Like I just was running around like a chicken with my head cut off.”
Elsewhere during the interview, Mellencamp revealed that her family, including dad John Mellencamp, influenced Arroyave in his decision to hold off on the former couple’s divorce because of her health.
“If he wanted to, he could still be filing and finishing this divorce off right now,” she said. “But, my dad and family just said like, ‘I don’t think this is the right thing for her to be able 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,’” she added.
The reality star, who was initially diagnosed with melanoma in 2022, announced in February that there were tumors discovered in her brain.
The cancer later metastasized to her brain and lungs.
“I would be lying if I said I also didn’t have a little bit of anger. Why did this happen to me?” she admitted about her cancer battle on the podcast. “In my mind, I was so healthy. I was taking care of myself. I play sports.”
She also shared that she has a “50/50” prognosis from doctors, but is optimistic about her survival.
“I truly believe this when I say this — and it’s gonna make me emotional — I truly believe that I’m gonna live,” she said. “I need to believe it. ‘Cause if not, it’s just too sad.”
