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John Mellencamp wants his daughter to move back home amid her health struggles.
During a recent appearance on “The Today Show,” the 74-year-old musician gave an update on the health of his daughter, former “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star Teddi Mellencamp, saying he has “tried to talk her into moving back home.”
“I said, ‘Move back to Indiana, bring the kids and just come back and live in Indiana,’ but she won’t do it,” he said.
Teddi first shared she was diagnosed with Stage 2 melanoma in March 2022, later sharing in April 2025 that her skin cancer had grown to Stage IV and that it had spread to her brain and lungs. She had surgery to remove the tumors on her brain, saying at the time that while getting them removed, doctors ended up finding more.
John Mellencamp wants his daughter to move back home to Indiana amid her cancer battle. (Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for JM)
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The former reality star kept fans updated on her health both on social media and on her podcast, “Two T’s in a Pod,” including sharing her treatment plan, which included immunotherapy. She announced on Instagram in April 2025, that a scan showed her brain and lung tumors were decreasing in size.
“I just finished with all my scans, and my tumors have significantly shrunk, which doctors believe means that this all will work and that I will be back to myself and feeling good,” Mellencamp said at the time. “I have two more sessions of immunotherapy, and then hopefully I am done, and I will be cancer-free.”
“I said, ‘Move back to Indiana, bring the kids and just come back and live in Indiana,’ but she won’t do it.”
While the star received positive news, John told the “Today Show” hosts that she is still “suffering,”
He shared that Teddi has her good days and bad days, and will usually feel like herself until she gets her immunotherapy treatment, adding that afterward “she feels like hell for about four days” before “feeling normal again.”
John Mellencamp said Teddi is still “suffering.” (SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP via Getty Images)
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“You can’t say you’re cancer-free with the type of cancer she’s got for three years,” he explained. “So she has lesions in her brain, it went from her back, just a little, teeny spot on her. Over the last couple years it grew, and it got inside her brain and her lungs.”
John also spoke to Joe Rogan on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast about Teddi’s health, telling the podcast host “It’s not f—ing fun,” and that she is “suffering right now.”
During an episode of her podcast in April 2025, Teddi shared that her dad was insisting she finalize her burial plans and make sure her will is up-to-date amid her health issues.
“Yesterday, my dad calls me 11 times in a row. Finally, I answer, I’m like, ‘I’m in the bath. Let me live a little,’” Teddi explained. “He goes, ‘I just want to make sure you’re going to be in our group family mausoleum.'”
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Teddi shared that her dad urged her to finalize her burial plans last April. (Presley Ann/Getty Images for Alliance for Women in Media Foundation)
“He’s like, ‘Well, there’s going to be the top five, and then we’re gonna have little areas around it, and then that’s where everyone’s going to get buried,’” she continued. “He goes, ‘You’re doing your will right now, so you may as well put it in there.’”
In the end, she said, “I think I agreed to be in the mausoleum,” and joked that someone she met not too long ago inspired her to get “Hot girls never die” put on her tombstone.
