Teddi Mellencamp has questioned if her stage 4 cancer diagnosis was "payback" for her alleged affair with a horse trainer.
The former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star, 44, appeared on the second half of The Jamie Kern Lima Show podcast, which was released August 5.
During her interview, she addressed long-standing rumors of an affair with her married horse trainer, Simon Schroeder - an allegation that surfaced in late 2024 and quickly made headlines.
“I've never talked about it at all, just because of the kids,” she began. “And I've never wanted anybody to have a guarantee whether it happened or didn't happen, but what I can say is, did I do things that hurt other people? Yes."
"To this day, does it still hurt my heart, and I wonder if that's why it got cancer? Yes, like it was my payback," she said, tearing up. She added: “Nothing goes without payment.”
Mellencamp, who is battling melanoma that has spread to her brain and lungs, described the guilt and emotional wreckage the affair brought into her life.
“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 said, referencing the impact on both families involved.
Schroeder’s wife, Karli Schroeder, filed for divorce on December 30, 2024, just months after rumors of the affair surfaced.
Court documents revealed the couple, who share two children, had been married since April 2024, following an annulled marriage earlier that year.
Sources told Page Six that Mellencamp’s alleged affair with Schroeder began around May 2024, and continued even as his wife was in labor with their second child.
One insider told the Daily Mail that Karli discovered text messages between Mellencamp and her husband upon his return from an equestrian event in Florida, an event the reality TV star also attended.
Mellencamp said on The Jamie Kern Lima Show that the experience was deeply personal and painful.
“So many people are hurt in the wreckage. But I can say this from knowing - the wreckage doesn't happen on its own,” she said.
At the time, RHOBH star said she was physically unwell and emotionally spiraling. “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 shared. “The pain was so much that I had gotten to the point of like, almost hating waking up in the morning.”
While she stopped short of blaming her alleged actions on her illness, Mellencamp noted, “ I felt so sick. I didn't go to the doctors. I just felt some certain kind of way," adding: "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."
Amid the scandal, Mellencamp filed for divorce from her husband of 13 years, Edwin Arroyave, on November 1, 2024.
But by February 2025, they put the process on hold following her cancer diagnosis. Arroyave has remained by her side, and the two continue to co-parent their children. Slate, 12, Cruz, 10, and Dove, four, while sharing a home.
“I always knew he'd do the right thing by me,” she said. “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...I kind of know how our marriage works."
Though she referred to Arroyave as her "ex-husband" on the podcast, she admitted their legal status remains complicated: "[I don't] know what you call somebody you were married to, then you filed for divorce, and then you got cancer, so then everything went on hold.”
As for Schroeder, he has never publicly commented on the affair allegations.