How Teddi Mellencamp told her kids about stage 4 cancer diagnosis
Teddi Mellencamp and estranged husband Edwin Arroyave didn’t want to “sugarcoat” the news of her stage 4 cancer diagnosis when telling their children.
“I was upfront with them with what was going on,” Arroyave, 47, said of how they told kids Slate, 12, Cruz, 10, and Dove, 5, that tumors had been found on the “RHOBH” alum’s brain.
When asked during Thursday’s episode of “The Eds” podcast how the kids took the news, Arroyave admitted they were obviously “scared.”
“They were concerned,” he continued, adding that he tried his “best to not sugarcoat it too much” and “called it the way it was.”
“I was like, ‘There’s some tumors that your mom has in her brain,’” Arroyave recalled. “I said, ‘It sounds worse than what it is, but this is what I think is, this is what we think is going to happen. This is sort of how we’re going to deal with it, and this is why I’m confident that she’s going to make it through.'”
Arroyave explained that the former couple decided to handle the news by being “direct” rather than have them find out online or through some other avenue.
Mellencamp previously shared in an interview with Us Weekly that she’s customized her approach to the topic based on each of her kids’ “very different personality types.”
“Slate wants to know every chrome of every detail,” she told the outlet Wednesday.
“She’s like my identical human,” she continued. “We look the same, we talk the same, we have all the same issues. So she wants every detail.”
Mellencamp, 43, divulged that her son Cruz, her “worrywart,” was concerned about the condition being contagious.
As for her youngest, Dove, the Bravolebrity said she’s unable to absorb the full impact, given her age.
She also shares stepdaughter Isabella, whom she calls “super strong,” with Arroyave. “We’re trying to focus on her sports and school and not overly focus on me,” she said.
Mellencamp — who was first diagnosed with skin cancer in 2022 — and Arroyave married in 2011 and split in October 2024 amid allegations she’d been unfaithful to him.
The mom of three confirmed in February that doctors had discovered “multiple tumors” on her brain that “had been growing for at least six months.”
Mellencamp was rushed into surgery Feb. 12 to remove the growths, but by March, doctors had discovered even more tumors.
”These are all a direct result of my melanoma,” she wrote via Instagram on March 6.
On Wednesday, Mellencamp revealed she had four more brain tumors and is battling stage 4 cancer.
“I’m fighting for my life, but also for my family’s life and all the people I love,” she told Us Weekly.
By Thursday, Mellencamp finally had some good news, sharing that she rang “the good luck bell” to mark the completion of her last day of radiation. She noted that she still has five rounds of immunotherapy.
Arroyave has remained supportive despite the pair filing for divorce, which has since been put on hold.
“No matter what, I will always love Teddi and she’s been a big part of my life,” Arroyave said during Thursday’s podcast episode. “And I just like taking care of people, it’s just what I do. So it wasn’t even like a question; it was reflexive.”
