The 'Two Ts in a Pod' host speaks out against online hate amid backlash over a 'Vanderpump Rules' cheating scandal joke.
Teddi Mellencamp wants to clarify her take on Scandoval. Or rather, her joke about it.
Earlier this week, a comment Teddi made on Melissa Gorga's On Display podcast spun itself into a headline across multiple outlets, all covering the fallout from Vanderpump Rules star Tom Sandoval cheating on longtime love Ariana Madix with co-star Raquel Leviss.
"She probably paid Raquel to do this," Teddi remarked, the "she" being her former The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills castmate Lisa Vanderpump, who stars on and executive produces Vanderpump Rules.
"Clearly I was making a joke and I'm being eviscerated for making a joke, which wasn't even being reported correctly, because everyone conveniently leaves out I said 'probably' and was laughing," the Two Ts in a Pod podcast host tells ET.
"I love Bravo fans, I think how passionate they are is obviously why Two Ts is so successful, but it feels like my words will continue to get twisted and when people will come at you and say, 'I wish you weren't alive, I wish you died!'" she adds.
"They get brutal with even the words they say. 'You're a waste of c**,'" she shares. "If somebody wants to come onto my page and be like, 'Listen, I don't think your joke is funny.' You know what? You're entitled to that opinion. And you know what? I can look back and listen to it and go, OK, maybe I pushed the boundaries here. I can be reflective if you're coming to me in some way that is logical. If you're saying my mother was a dumb woman to ever get pregnant with me because I'm disgusting on this earth? I don't know if you really have a leg to stand on there. I'm not really taking your feedback."
Teddi's no stranger to battling with LVP supporters online; the two fell out on what would become Lisa's final season on RHOBH amid "puppy-gate," but she says death threats, especially over a quick quip turned clickbait, are beyond unwarranted.
"I just don't get why it turns so dark," she admits. "Do I think that she's pulling out $20 bills and paying Raquel for this drama? No! Like, please, guys."
"If we're gonna really dig into it, anybody on a reality show is paid to cause drama," she notes. "I wasn't [really] saying that she was paid to cause an affair, but that is what anybody on a reality show is doing. So, even the outrage if I wasn't joking?"
Lisa didn't reach out to Teddi directly as the quote made its rounds, but did tweet about it, calling it "fake news."
"I truly want to say, I'm happy that Vanderpump Rules is doing well," Teddi says. The show doubled its viewership after news of the affair broke.
"I love [the production company] Evolution," she continues. "I love a lot of the cast on Vanderpump Rules. I don't have it out for this woman. I made a joke! Maybe not a good joke -- I'm not in charge of how great my humor is -- but it's just taken such life and not represented accurately and everybody treating it as if I said a factual statement, and it just feeds into the online hate and that's just the part that's a bummer."
She also calls out a double standard she sees in the fandom; when Lisa appeared on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen last week, she told viewers attacking Tom and Raquel, "This kind of vigilante justice, I don't agree with at all ... unless it's to, you know, Kyle [Richards] or Lisa Rinna."
"Do I need to watch what I say? Yeah, but it's just, to me it's a bummer, because people can laugh at a joke that she says that's clearly, like, she was opening up other people to come for two other people that are on that same network," she says. Teddi also makes it clear, she's not a victim in this and has no ill-will toward her former castmate.
"I'm really not coming for Lisa Vanderpump in any way," she promises. "I'm talking about her show! Clearly, I don't have an issue, because people who really don't like somebody refuse to speak about them. I'm not doing that. I'm happy to talk about it."
"I think that people, their favorite thing to say is, 'Oh, Teddi, you're just being thirsty,'" she says. "But this is supposed to be the fun part. If you don't listen to the whole thing, why are you so angry about it? And if you do listen to it, do your research."
"Take a breath before making a comment that could ultimately hurt somebody," she pleads. "Agree with me, or disagree with me. Think I'm funny, or think I'm annoying. Have an opinion, but you don't need to go to that level."
She also clarifies, she doesn't take any of the threats as legitimate, but she does see them as a warning shot of what could come in the Bravo community.
"I'm not delusional, but it's not necessary," she says. "I only speak on it because I don't want this to keep happening. Like, as a viewer of Housewives now, I don't want this to happen to [cast members who go against 'fan-favorites'] and then not give us the full potential they possibly have because they're being beaten down by the fans."
New episodes of Two Ts in a Pod debut weekly from iHeartRadio, wherever you listen to podcasts. Vanderpump Rules airs Wednesdays on Bravo.
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