John Mellencamp Shares How He Supports Teddi While She's 'Going Through Hell': 'I Talk to Her Every Day' (Exclusive)
- - John Mellencamp Shares How He Supports Teddi While She's 'Going Through Hell': 'I Talk to Her Every Day' (Exclusive)
Cara Lynn Shultz, Rachel DeSantisJanuary 18, 2026 at 12:00 AM
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John Mellencamp with daughter Teddi Mellencamp. -
John Mellencamp tells PEOPLE exclusively that he talks to daughter Teddi Mellencamp “every day” amid her stage 4 cancer journey
Teddi still has "10 lesions in her brain," he says, and while they aren’t cancerous, they "interrupt her thinking"
Mellencamp is preparing to go out on his Dancing Words Tour — The Greatest Hits this summer
John Mellencamp says he talks to his daughter Teddi Mellencamp "every day" amid her treatment for stage 4 cancer — and that she struggles with the side effects of "10 lesions in her brain."
"She's been going through hell the last year," the rocker, 74, tells PEOPLE exclusively. "She has 10 lesions in her brain … even though the lesions are not cancerous right now, they still interrupt her thinking, and it's in her frontal lobe," he says.
According to Cleveland Clinic, the frontal lobe is the area of the brain that controls thinking, emotions, and personality.
Charles Sykes/Bravo/Getty
Teddi Mellencamp and father John Mellencamp appear on 'Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen'
While the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum, 44, was able to have some lesions removed, she is undergoing radiation therapy for those that remain. "The lesions are still there, but the cancer's not," Mellencamp explains. "But that doesn't mean she's home free; it just means right now there's no cancer. So she has to keep on this treatment for who knows how many years.”
The "Jack and Diane" singer echoed what Teddi herself shared on the Oct. 3 episode of the podcast she usually cohosts with Tamra Judge, Two T’s in a Pod, when she revealed “no detectable cancer.” But, she said, she would continue immunotherapy for at least a year, explaining, “I'm still going to be having days when I'm feeling sick and stuff because I still am in immunotherapy, so I'm still fighting because you have to be.”
As Teddi explained at the time, “I’m not considered in remission or anything like that."
Her cancer struggle began in 2022 when she was diagnosed with stage 2 melanoma — the deadliest form of skin cancer — on her back, and later underwent 17 surgeries for the invasive cancer. In April 2025, Teddi revealed that her cancer was now stage 4, having metastasized to her brain and lungs. To treat it, she’s undergone immunotherapy, radiation and surgery.
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Teddi Mellencamp at BravoCon in Las Vegas in November 2025.
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But along with the physical impact on his daughter, Mellencamp tells PEOPLE that "her personality has changed” throughout her cancer struggle due to complications and side effects. “She's still the same person, but she's not the same person. It's not fun.”
Mellencamp, who lives in Bloomington, Ind., says he plans to check in with Teddi when he heads to Los Angeles for the Grammy Awards. “I talk to her every day. Great kid.”
After that, he'll go out on his Dancing Words Tour — The Greatest Hits. “I don’t mean to sound corny, but I could never, in my wildest dreams, have imagined, when I made my first record at 22, that at 74, I would still be here,” he says.
In the meantime, he hopes she will consider moving back home. "I've tried to talk her into moving back home," John continued. "I said, 'Move back to Indiana, bring the kids and just come back and live in Indiana,' but she won't do it," he told the Today show.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
