Teddi Mellencamp has applauded her father, John Mellencamp, for being her support system and ‘changing’ her life after she was diagnosed with cancer.

The 44-year-old former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star — who was diagnosed with melanoma in 2022 and revealed in 2025 it had become stage four cancer — took the stage Thursday night at the 2026 iHeartRadio Music Awards to present the iHeart Radio Music Icon Award to her rockstar father, 74.

“Tonight we celebrate the career of my dad, John Mellencamp,” she began her speech at the Dolby Theatre. “But before I tell you the story of John Mellencamp, the artist, I want to tell you the story of him as a father. He’s being honored as an icon, a legend, a hitmaker, but to me, he’ll always be ‘dad.’”

“He stepped up, took control, fought for me, and pretty much changed my life, saved my life,” the reality TV star said of how her father helped her in the aftermath of her cancer diagnosis.

Teddi — who said in October that her cancer was “gone” — also offered a candid response to the oft-asked question about “growing up with a rock star for a father.”

“In my eyes, it was no different than anybody else,” she said. “He gave me advice, he’d give me groundings, he would love on me.”

She went on to highlight some of his iconic songs over the years, explaining how the lyrics of his tune “Longest Days” meant the most to her, especially after she was diagnosed with stage four cancer in February 2025.

“In it he sings, ‘But nothing lasts forever / Your best efforts don’t always pay / Sometimes when you get sick, you don’t get better / That’s when life is short, even at its longest days,’” she said, while tearing up. “Because it was a little over a year ago when I got sick, my life felt short even when the days in the hospital seemed to go on forever.”

Although John sings that “sometimes you get sick and you don’t get better,” Teddi said that he was not going to let that lyric “define [her] life.”

“We’re celebrating the icon, the artist, a man the whole world knows as John Mellencamp. A man I get to call dad, and my best friend.”

Teddi was diagnosed with melanoma in 2022. Her condition advanced to stage four in 2025 and metastasized to her lungs and brain. She then underwent major brain surgery that removed four tumors.

In October, Teddi told Real Housewives of New Jersey star Dolores Catania on her Two T’s in a Pod podcast that she had “no detectable cancer.”

“When they told me, I was in such shock. I was like, numb,” she said.

She added that she will remain on immunotherapy treatments for another year. “I’m still going to be having days when I’m feeling sick and stuff because I still am in immunotherapy, so I’m still fighting because you have to be,” she explained.

“I’m not considered in remission or anything like that,” Teddi noted. “The way the [doctors] said it works, it’s like one year, then two years, then at three years you’re allowed to be considered… in remission. So, but that was huge news yesterday.”

In January, John sparked concerns that Teddi’s cancer had spread, since he claimed she was “really sick” and “suffering” during an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

“I think when he said the words ‘suffering,’ he meant like, how I’m mentally doing versus how I’m physically doing,” Teddi clarified, during an episode of Two T’s in a Pod at the time. “There’s still no trace of cancer.”