Tamra Judge and Teddi Mellencamp (Photo by Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for iHeartRadio)
Tamra Judge has a message for fans who want updates on Teddi Mellencamp’s health scare.
“You know, a lot of people are reaching out to me and they want me to get them an update,” the Real Housewife said through tears in the Wednesday, February 19 episode of the “Two Ts in a Pod” podcast, which Judge and Mellencamp cohost. Dolores Cantania filled in for Mellencamp while she recovers from brain tumor surgery.
“And because nobody’s saying anything, people are coming up with their own stories and things like that,” Judge, 57, continued. “It’s not my place. What do you guys want me to do? Do you want me to take pictures from the hospital and post them? I’m not doing that.”
Judge said that “some people are getting mean with me, going, ‘Why won’t you give us an update?’ And I just said, ‘I’m so sorry. I know you’re concerned, but it’s not my place. It’s not my place.’ All I can do is pray on her and love her like all of her friends are doing. And that’s it.”
Judge said that Mellencamp’s “family, her friends, myself, everybody — we’re just trying to put one foot in front of the other right now.”
She did share that she spoke with Mellencamp, 43, “before her surgery and she really wants this podcast to continue. It’s her pride and joy, and she’s so good at it, and she wants the momentum to keep going. And she just wants everybody to know that when she can get back, she’ll be back.”
Judge cried while recalling that recent conversation, in which she told Mellencamp: “No one will ever take your place.”
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star announced on February 12 that she was going to have surgery to remove brain tumors.
“For the last several weeks I’ve been dealing with severe debilitating headaches,” she said via Instagram at the time. “Yesterday the pain was unbearable and required hospitalization.”
Mellencamp explained that a CT scan and MRI detected the tumors, which doctors “believe have been growing for at least 6 months.” She noted last Wednesday that two of those tumors would be taken out in surgery that day, while the other “small tumors will be dealt with via radiation at a later date.”
Judge said on “Two Ts in a Pod” that she’s in a group text with other women and coordinating visitation schedules “because we don’t ever want her to be alone.” She noted that she’d spent eight hours visiting with Mellencamp, whose “sense of humor is poking through.”
Judge said of her friend, “I just don’t even know what I would do without her.”
She also thanked her former Real Housewives of Orange County costar Vicki Gunvalson for sending well wishes to Mellencamp despite “all the bad blood between her and Teddi. I heard that she did go on her podcast and say, like, ‘Teddi doesn’t deserve this,’ and she’s praying for her and all the things that went down between them [don’t] matter when it comes to cancer and things — like, it doesn’t. We appreciate that. We really do.”