Teddi Mellencamp is opening up about a particularly challenging time amid her cancer battle. The 44-year-old Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum was first diagnosed with stage 2 melanoma in 2022. Earlier this year, she revealed that the cancer has progressed to stage 4. At the time, she said she felt “really scared.” But in spite of the serious diagnosis, she hasn’t really slowed down much. Recently, though, when she contracted Covid-19, she started experiencing “extreme, extreme depression” in addition to physical symptoms of the virus.
Teddi described feeling ‘hopeless.’
For Teddi, who is the daughter of singer John Mellencamp, contracting Covid-19 impacted her in an unexpected way. “I got COVID, which, I’m good now,” she said on the September 17 episode of her Two T’s in a Pod podcast. “Then I started feeling like extreme, extreme depression.” During that time, she felt completely “hopeless,” which was unlike anything she had ever experienced before.
Overall, her week was “brutal.”
Her former co-star Erika Jayne reminded her that she’s ‘going through a lot.’
Although Erika admitted that she’s not a mental health professional, she could see why Teddi might be struggling with her mental health right now. “I think the gravity of what you’ve gone through is hitting you right now,” Erika told her. Teddi agreed, adding, “I went from, like, having like this kind of chaotic life nonstop and then right into the hospital. And then I haven’t been able to process.”
From Erika’s point of view, Teddi also “shrugged this very serious diagnosis off like it was nothing,” but it’s not surprising that it caught up with her. “You, had surgery, you, were competing in horse shows, you were dating … now it’s hitting you, like, months later, the seriousness and the gravity,” Erika said.
Teddi said she felt ‘paralyzed.’
When dealing with the worst of it, Teddi didn’t reach out to Erika because she hates asking for help. Erika told her, “This is the time that you lean on people. I would have come out here. I know you had Covid, but I still would have come.”
Beyond not wanting to ask for help, Teddi struggled to actually pick up her phone and reach out to people during that time. “I felt paralyzed,” she explained. “That’s why it’s, like, hard for me to even send a text message, or, reach out to anybody … the brain fog and all those types of things. It’s just, like, I can’t stand it.”
Erika told her to stop being so hard on herself. “You don’t need to be alone with your own thoughts because that rumination can get into a place where it’s just really heavy,” she said.
Teddi recalled feeling “so stuck.” She said, “I still can’t drive. I felt like I was just stuck inside of this house and then I think COVID added to it … and I was like, ‘Holy [expletive], I haven’t felt like this ever ever in my life.'”
Her doctors told her that the way she was feeling was fairly ‘normal.’
@twotsinapod Teddi and Erika have a raw, honest, and open conversation about depression, mental health, and the ability to know when to ask for help. #TwoTsInAPod #RealHousewives #TeddiMellencamp #ErikaJayne ♬ original sound – Two Ts In A Pod
They told her that she just has to “keep going through it.” In April 2025, Teddi said she was given a “50/50 chance” of surviving her cancer. “I really like to have control, and this is completely out of my control,” she said at the time. “And for the first time, I’m really scared.”
While struggling with Covid-19, she took Paxlovid, which helped her get through it and start testing negative. “Now I can leave my house,” Teddi said. “Yesterday I was like, okay, I’ll go get my nails, done. I got a pedi. So you know it’s what it is.”
