Fans of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills were quite surprised earlier this week when word came out that Teddi Mellencamp, who'd been a cast member for three seasons, wouldn't be returning after Season 10. While most of the Housewives do, indeed, come and go from each of the franchises, it's always good to hear about any departures right from the ladies themselves, and Mellencamp has now revealed why she won't be back.
Teddi Mellencamp joined RHOBH in 2017, and much of her storyline this season involved her being pregnant with her third child, daughter Dove, who was born in late February. Now that rumors of her not coming back to the show have been circling for a few days, Mellencamp has decided to open up about the matter, and confirmed the news with a short video on Instagram. Here's what she had to say about it:
I recently found out that my contract as a Housewife is not being renewed. Of course I could give you the standard response of, 'Oh, we both came to the decision that it would be best'…. Nah. I’m not going to do that. That’s not who I am. Of course when I got the news, I was sad. It feels like a breakup, almost, because you develop such strong relationships with the cast, with the crew. And you get to do incredible things that you’d probably never get to experience without the show.
Well, I don't think anyone can fault Teddi Mellencamp for being totally honest about what happened with The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. She freely admitted that she was "sad" about her contract not being renewed, because she did feel like she had developed strong relationships with her fellow castmates, as well as the crew who worked with her on the show, not to mention the "incredible" things she got to do because of being a part of the long-running series.
Viewers, though, will know that Teddi Mellencamp had a bit of trouble fitting in with the other ladies on the show. While she and Kyle Richards seemed to have become close friends, especially in Season 10, Mellencamp didn't appear to really have very strong friendships with any of the other women. Just this past season, at a dinner party with all the ladies and several guests in their finery (of course), Sutton Stracke told Mellencamp that she thought she was going to be "boring." Then implied that she figured that would be even worse once Mellencamp became pregnant. Ouch.
While Stracke quickly added that she simply "didn't know the depth" of who Mellencamp was at first, and said she was actually "way more interesting than I thought," it turns out that she may have been on to something. When reports about Mellencamp being let go from RHOBH first circulated, an unnamed source close to the production told The Daily Mail:
The network has not been impressed with her performance on the show. They considered cutting her last season but gave her one last chance. She is boring and stale and does not offer anything to the franchise with her robotic and staged delivery when interacting with the other cast members. The issue is, the other cast members don’t particularly like her and beyond Kyle [Richards], no one is friends with her.
Wow. I haven't, by any means, seen all of Teddi Mellencamp's time on RHOBH, but she doesn't seem that bad. The issue, of course, is that you better come to that show ready to bring some serious drama, hot takes, or wild storylines in order to stay relevant, and Mellencamp does not seem to have been able to do that during her time on the show. Basically, if you come off as too much of a normal person on camera, you probably won't be around for very long.
Even though Teddi Mellencamp is clearly not happy about being let go from the series, she did wrap up her video by saying that she feels like she's got some exciting things ahead, and is more than willing to spend her extra free time on her family and friends, so, at least she's not worried about what her non-RHOBH future holds.
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills will be back for Season 11 at some point, so stay tuned to CinemaBlend for details. In the meantime, be sure to see what else you can watch with our fall TV premiere guide!
