The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum Teddi Mellencamp had an unexpected reaction to Brandon Blackstock’s death following her own skin cancer battle.
“The Brandon Blackstock story really hit me hard this week,” Mellencamp, 44, said on the Wednesday, August 13, episode of her “Two T’s in a Pod” podcast. “I wish I had missed that little detail on the World Wide Web because then I started doing research. They were so quiet about what [happened], I mean, we know he passed from melanoma.”
Blackstock, who was previously married to Kelly Clarkson, died on August 7 after a three-year battle with cancer. He was 48.
“I was wondering when did it metastasize, like, is this just where my head goes from being in the [same] situation?” Mellencamp, who was diagnosed with melanoma in 2022 and is now receiving treatment for brain tumors after the cancer spread, said. “Did he decline treatment? There’s so many different ways this could have happened, and I one million [percent] respect their choice of keeping it private.”
While Mellencamp stressed that she “doesn’t know” Blackstock’s treatment regimen, if any, she still felt a flood of emotions reading the headlines about his death.
“Those kind of stories hit you hard when it directly sounds similar to something you’re going through,” she said. “Kelly made it clear when she rescheduled the end of her tour in [Las] Vegas because she needs to be there for her kids.”
Blackstock was married to Clarkson, 43, for seven years before separating in 2020. Blackstock and Clarkson, who finalized their divorce in 2022, shared children River Rose, 11, and Remington, 9. (Blackstock is also survived by his two older children, Savannah and Seth, from a previous relationship.)
“You want to support your children, and that’s what I think we do when it comes to illness,” Mellencamp said. “No matter what kind, mental or physical. We have to be so careful because you just don’t know the person [and if they] could take something the wrong way.”
Mellencamp added, “At the end of the day, it’s what is best for your kids.”
Mellencamp, for her part, shares three children with estranged husband Edwin Arroyave and has made sure they understand her own cancer battle. (Mellencamp is also stepmother to Arroyave’s eldest daughter, Isabella, from a previous relationship.)
“I think they got so much love while I was in the hospital. Between my dad and all my siblings and my mom and Edwin,” Mellencamp exclusively told Us Weekly in her April cover story. “They all know that I’m fighting the hardest I possibly can. But I haven’t said, ‘Mommies always come back’ [like I did on RHOBH] because I don’t wanna lie to them. And I don’t know.”
