Teddy Mellencamp has one of the most iconic last names in music, so it’s no surprise that he turned to his famous father, John Mellencampto seek advice before undertaking The masked singer.
“My dad said, ‘Just sing loud and proud, and if you don’t hit a note, you don’t hit a note, but as long as you give it your all, that’s what matters,'” the 44-year-old former Bravo star exclusively said. Us Weekly following his unmasking during the Wednesday, February 4 episode of the Fox singing competition. “And that’s what I was doing.”
Teddi didn’t initially tell John, 74, that he had landed a gig The masked singerbut when it came time to show off her pipes, she decided it was time to ask the Grammy winner for some advice.
“One time I was singing a song, then I talked to him about it. I needed advice,” she. “He says, ‘Don’t go out there trying to think you’re a singer. Just go out and sing the song like you would sing. Have fun.”
The advice seems to have worked, because Teddi blew the judges away with his performances Rachel Platten“Fight Song” by “Fight Song” and “Jack & Diane” by his father. The above song, she explained, has become “an anthem” for her as she battles stage IV melanoma. (A scan in October 2025 showed “no detectable cancer”, but Teddi explained on his podcast last month that he’s still considered stage IV while still on immunotherapy.)
“I’ll probably even get emotional talking about it,” Teddi said of Platten’s inspirational track. “I’m almost a year (post) from all my cancer surgeries, but it’s been a fight and I wanted to be able to share the softer side, but also (show) that you can work really hard and still do the things you want to do.”
As for the second song, John’s 1982 #1 hit, Teddi initially didn’t even think it was an option to even sing one of his father’s songs because of who held the rights. When she realized her masters had been sold, however, her catalog was on the table and she was ready to give it a try.
Teddi Mellencamp stars as Calla Lily in season 14 of ‘The Masked Singer’.
Michael Becker/ FOXWhen Teddi spoke weher father had yet to see her take on “Jack & Diane”; planned to come see it with her so she could get “cute and embarrassed,” but previously expressed her approval of his “Fight Song” performance.
“He thought the first episode was great,” she said we. “I mean, he’s my dad, so it’s different. But he said, ‘I thought you were great.’
tuning in The masked singer Apparently, it’s always a family affair in the Mellencamp household, regardless of who’s under the guise. As Teddi said in the first Calla Lily track pack, she wanted to do the show for her kids, who love the show. (She shares Slate, 13, Cruz, 11, and Dove, 5, with ex Edwin Arroyave.)
Teddi Mellencamp will always appreciate her father, John Mellencamp, despite his well-documented ups and downs. John welcomed daughters Teddi and Justice with ex-wife Victoria Granucci in 1981 and 1985, respectively. The singer also shares daughter Michelle with ex Priscilla Esterline, and sons Hud and Speck with ex-wife Elaine Irwin. In May 2024, Teddi shared that (…)
“My kids have seen me in a situation where I was recovering from brain surgery and I wanted them to know that there is life after that,” she explained. “And once you feel better, you can push yourself and try new things. So that was part of why I wanted to do it. The masked singerbut the other part was because it’s my kids’ favorite show.”
The kids didn’t know beforehand that their mom was on the show, but she said they found out as soon as they heard her voice because she always sings in the car.
“I said, ‘How do you know?’ Because I wanted to wait (to tell them),” he recalled. “And they said, ‘Don’t even try to fool us. We know.'”
At the time they were “so worried” that her mum would come home first, but that didn’t happen – she did two performances before Calla Lily’s career ended despite being so nervous she found herself shaking on stage.
“I said, ‘You have to do this. There’s no choice,” Teddi remembered telling herself. “You just have to fight your nerves and remember the words and sing loud.”
Teddi has been fighting hard for the past year, sharing insights about her health journey on her podcast “Two T’s in a Pod,” which she co-hosts The Real Housewives of Orange County‘s Judge Tamra. Listeners may come expecting reality TV gossip, but Teddi hasn’t shied away from discussing the serious subject of her treatment, in part because she believes it would be “impossible” for fans not to realize something was up.
“You can hear how my voice has changed over time. You can see how my personality has changed. And I’m aware of that,” Teddi explained. “When you have brain surgery, there are so many things that are affected, and I didn’t want to be ashamed of it. So, I just wanted to talk about it and make other people not feel alone. But also, if I talk about it, then I’m less nervous about it, then I can just be me. I’m not trying to hide, today, something like ‘me’, really shaken, me, really? “You might notice that my voice sounds funny.”
She added: “It’s one of the side effects of one of the treatments I’m going through, and it’s kind of letting people know you’re not alone. I think a lot of people talk about the physical aspect of having cancer, but the mental aspect is forgotten. So as much as I can talk about it, I do.”
Last month, Teddi opened on the initiation of therapy to help process everything that has happened between his battle against cancer and his divorce with Arroyave, 48 years old.
“It’s really hard for me to tap into my feelings, because I think I’ve put up a wall,” she shared with we. “I was so scared of what happened that I didn’t want to go into it and get into those emotions, but now that I have it, it’s like the floodgates are open. It’s definitely been helping, because I think when you’re going through trauma and you’re trying to do it all the time, it completely blew me away.”
The masked singershe said, helped remind him that he can go on.
“You become a creature of habit when you’re healing,” he said. “I’m at home. I do my podcast from home. I don’t have a driver’s license yet, so my podcast room is 15 steps from where my bedroom is. It’s like everything is in one area. Being able to get out there and do that was something that showed me that I can do hard things.”
The masked singer airs Wednesdays on Fox at 8 pm ET. New episodes will air the next day on Hulu.