Teddi Mellencamp Finally Addresses Rumored Affair With Horse Trainer Simon Schroeder While She Was Married to Edwin Arroyave: 'I Wonder If That's Why I Got Cancer'

Teddi Mellencamp finally broke her silence on rumors she had an affair with her horse trainer, Simon Schroeder, while married to Edwin Arroyave.

“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, but what I can say is, did I do things that hurt other people? Yes," Mellencamp shared on “The Jamie Kern Lima Show” podcast, which was released on August 5.

"To this day, does it still hurt my heart and I wonder if that's why it got cancer?” she asked. “Yes, like it was my payback.”

Through tears, Mellencamp noted, “nothing goes without payment.”

"However long it was… it was all over the press, it was everywhere,” she continued. “You're trying to minimize everybody's pain. You end up maximizing it. Because now not only do you have yourself, you have your significant other, your kids, the other person's significant other, their kids."

Court documents obtained by a media outlet show Schroeder’s ex-wife filed for divorce on December 30, 2024, citing irreconcilable differences.

Mellencamp filed for divorce from Arroyave on November 1, 2024, citing irreconcilable differences. Once she was diagnosed with brain cancer in February, their divorce proceedings were put on the back burner.

Throughout Mellencamp’s cancer battle, Arroyave has stuck by her side and been a major support system for her.

"But I can say this from knowing — the wreckage doesn't happen on its own," Mellencamp shared on the alleged affair, adding, "it never had happened to me."

"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, noting she was "so sick” and going through “months of headaches,” which led her to look “for comfort anywhere I can get it.”

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

Although she admitted she wasn’t herself, the reality starlet didn’t blame her actions on her illness.

“But I do think a bunch of things happened in my life all around the same time, and I had zero control of any of them,” she said. “Like I just was running around like a chicken with my head cut off.”

Regardless of what occurred, Mellencamp made one thing clear about Arroyave: she doesn’t “hate” him.

"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 added.