Teddi Mellencamp ‘Wonders’ if She ‘Got Cancer’ as ‘Payback’ for Alleged Affair With Horse Trainer

Teddi Mellencamp publicly addressed her rumored affair with her horse trainer for the first time.

In late 2024, news broke that The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum, 44, reportedly cheated on her husband, Edwin Arroyave, with her horse trainer, Simon Schroeder, and Mellencamp has kept quiet on the matter since. However, on the Tuesday, August 5 episode of The Jamie Kern Lima Show podcast, the wellness coach shed light on the situation.

“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,” she explained. “But what I can say is, did I do things that hurt other people? Yes.”

The TV personality — who is currently battling stage 4 melanoma – made a tearful statement during the episode, “To this day, does it still hurt my heart, and I wonder if that’s why I got cancer? Yes, like it was my payback. Nothing goes without payment, I guess.”

“However long it was … it was all over the press, it was everywhere. You’re trying to minimize everybody’s pain. You end up maximizing it,” she continued. “Because now not only do you have yourself, you have your significant other, your kids, the other person’s significant other, their kids. I mean, so many people are hurt in the wreckage. But I can say this from knowing — the wreckage doesn’t happen on its own.”

“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,” she added.

The Two Ts In A Pod co-host noted she was “so sick during that stage” and was “looking for comfort anywhere.”

“I felt so much pain. I felt so sick. I didn’t go to the doctors. I just felt some certain kind of way,” she admitted. “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.”

While Mellencamp didn’t want to blame her actions on her being sick, she pointed out that “a bunch of things happened in my life all around the same time, and I had zero control of any of them.”

During her appearance on the podcast, Mellencamp confirmed that Arroyave had been unfaithful to her a decade ago. She admitted that it was with somebody she knew, and that it “broke” her.

“I had to beg Edwin to want to stay with me. I had to beg him. I don’t think he was in love with me at that point,” she recalled. “I think we’ve gone through times in our marriage where we’ve been madly in love with each other, but that wasn’t one of those times.”

Mellencamp filed for divorce from Arroyave, 48, — with whom she shares kids Slate, 12, Cruz, 10, Dove, 5 — in November 2024, after her alleged infidelity. However, the couple paused the divorce proceedings when Mellencamp found out she had multiple brain tumors in February. Arroyave has been there for her since.

While the future of their marriage remains unclear, Mellencamp confessed she has a profile on the dating app Hinge.

“I just want him to be happy, and I want our kids to be happy, and I want us to be able to have a good friendship and relationship, and I don’t want to do anything to hurt him,” she said.