Teddi Mellencamp Says Doctors Missed Her Cancer’s Spread

Teddi Mellencamp is encouraging others to advocate for their health amid her own journey with stage 4 cancer.

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum, 44, opened up to close friend Kyle Richards in a conversation about her cancer journey published in Glamour on Thursday, revealing that she believes doctors missed the spread of melanoma into other parts of her body.

Mellencamp was first diagnosed with melanoma in 2022 and has since undergone 17 procedures to remove the aggressive form of skin cancer. In April, the Bravo star revealed that her cancer had progressed to stage 4, having metastasized to her brain and lungs, requiring her to go under the knife again in addition to immunotherapy and radiation.

Mellencamp told Richards that despite her numerous checkups with doctors, they didn’t catch the spread of her melanoma.

“When you go to a doctor, you just assume that’s it. I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. At first, I didn’t even really do the research on melanoma because I didn’t want to know all of the bad things,” she recalled, adding, “But there’s a difference between self-diagnosing yourself and being an advocate for your own health.”

Mellencamp continued, “I never really thought about it because I was like, I go to a doctor every three months. Why wouldn’t they get me checked? My highest melanoma on my shoulder was stage one. When I finally followed up on it, they were like, ‘We didn’t do the scans, because you didn’t have anything above a stage one on your body.’ But look what happened.”

Without the scans to track the spread of her melanoma, Mellencamp said she was initially perplexed by the onset of debilitating headaches as she encouraged others to “trust your gut instinct.”

“There was a long time that I wasn’t feeling well and didn’t go to the doctor,” she said. “I thought I had migraines, I thought I was going through menopause. I had self-diagnosed myself with 500 things. And then one day, I couldn’t stand up. It’s being an advocate for yourself and your health if you’re not feeling good.”

Sharing some of the other lessons she’s learned through her cancer journey, Mellencamp stressed the importance of getting life insurance before a devastating diagnosis.

“One of the biggest things that I wish people knew is that you’ve got to plan ahead of time. You don’t need to wait until you’re sick to do things like life insurance,” she said. “Have those hard conversations with your family, because you never know when it’s going to come.”

“I can’t get it now,” she continued. “I always thought, I’ll do it when I’m older and then never did. I couldn’t get it back in the days when I only had melanoma on my shoulder. If you get anything from this interview, it’s to get yourself some life insurance and some friends you can laugh with.”