The Tragic Real-Life Story Of John Mellencamp

Everybody can relate to the people and themes in John Mellencamp's music

That's because he's a real guy who's lived a few lifetimes' worth of drama and struggle

Here's a look into the tragic, real-life story that shaped the life and work of John Mellencamp

Mellencamp is lucky he made it out of his childhood alive. Shortly after his birth in 1951

he underwent surgery for spina bifida, a birth defect that leaves an opening in the spinal column

that can make the spinal cord extend outside the body and leave a growth. That was usually

Usually a fatal condition back in the early 50s, but a new surgical technique saved young

Mellencamp's life. More than 60 years later, in 2014, he met the surgeon who performed the operation, Dr

Robert Heimberger. They remembered it because I was the first one they'd ever done

According to Mellencamp, Heimberger and associates performed operations on three infant spina

bifida patients at Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis. died on the table. Another girl lived, I think, till she was 14, and then she died, and then me

Mellencamp's songs are often from the point of view of the underdog. They're about hardworking

individuals from small towns trying to get a leg up to be able to afford a little pink house

That's a struggle Mellencamp witnessed in his hometown of Seymour, Indiana, and within his own family. His father, Richard, met his mother when he literally ran into her

on the street one day. As Mellencamp told the New York Times in 1987, Richard and his older brother

Joe were running from cops after roughing up four guys in retaliation for a beating Richard had

gotten earlier. Those Mellencamps were playing the detestable part in which the community had cast

them. As Mellencamp explained, for as far back as anyone can care to remember, there has been a rigid

petty, small-town class system in Seymour. The top of that system was occupied by people who became

rich during the Industrial Revolution, while the rest were farmers. The singer's great-great

grandfather moved from Germany to Indiana in 1851 and started the family farm, which had to be sold

a generation later. That left John's grandfather Harry to drop out of school in the third grade to

work as a carpenter. When Harry went to register to vote, the clerk laughed at him and made fun of

his name. As John put it, we were always hearing talk that, you low-class Mellencamps will never

amount to anything. At the age of 18, Mellencamp was dating a woman three years older than him

named Priscilla Esterlein. When she became pregnant in 1970, the couple tried to do the

traditional thing and get married, but under Indiana law at the time, 18-year-old Mellencamp

wasn't old enough to do so without parental permission. But that's when the couple hit

upon a solution. They eloped to Kentucky, the next state over. That marriage lasted a little

over a decade through Mellencamp's early career hurdles, stumbles, and dead ends

But it couldn survive when he fell for another woman After seeing a photo of professional TV extra Vicky Granucci at a friend house Mellencamp became infatuated When they finally met it turned out they actually had fantastic

chemistry. He and Esterlein quickly split up so that Mellencamp could marry Granucci

who notably stars as Diane in Mellencamp's Jack and Diane video. Two months after they made it official, they welcomed their first daughter

Teddy Jo, who would later go on to become a cast member on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

After he married Granucci, Mellencamp's history of tumultuous love affairs still wasn't over

as he would once again fall for a new woman, leave his current wife

marry the new gal, and put her in a music video. This time, it was Elaine Irwin, whom he met when she was the cover model for his 1991 album

Whenever We Wanted. Ten weeks after their first face-to-face, they were engaged

and in 1992, they married. She's also the star of his video for Get a Leg Up

This third marriage lasted a long time, almost 18 years. But it nonetheless fell apart as surely

as the first two. Apparently, women just don't like me very much. That's all I can say about that

In 2011, not long after his divorce was finalized, Mellencamp struck up an on-again

off-again relationship with movie star Meg Ryan, a coupling that apparently left the rocker a

little wounded. When he appeared on Howard Stern's radio show after splitting with the actress in

2014, he revealed, Oh, women hate me. I loved Meg Ryan. She hates me to death

But all was not lost forever. After a year-long relationship with model Christy Brinkley

Mellencamp and Ryan reunited, and in November 2018, they got engaged. How would you figure out at 67 now, let's do this thing for real

I don't know what you mean. While John Mellencamp suffered from a potentially fatal birth defect as a baby

his third child similarly faced an uncertain future. In 1985, Mellencamp and his wife at the

time, Vicki Granucci, awaited the arrival of their second child together. While she was pregnant

Granucci fell ill with chickenpox, and doctors informed the expectant parents that the illness

might result in fetal deformity. Mellencamp told the New York Times, "...we were so terrified. Maybe the way my parents were with my spinal problems at birth.

Mellencamp also noted that he and Granucci were so afraid of losing their child that they

didn't decide on a name until the day Granucci gave birth. He told the Times

As the doctor began the delivery, we decided that if there was any justice in the world

the baby would be healthy. Mellencamp has left alcohol and marijuana behind, but he's not a man totally devoid

of vice, as he's an enthusiastic, lifelong smoker. As he revealed in a 2018 interview with CBS News he started puffing on cigarettes at the tender age of 10 and he doesn think more than five decades of the habit have been all that bad for him and he got a bit of a theory about that I believe that it the combination of cigarettes and alcohol that get people

the two of them combined. That theory may not carry too much weight, though, considering that Mellencamp suffered

a heart attack in 1994 at the relatively young age of 42. He was on tour, and he didn't feel well

So he went back to his hometown of Bloomington, Indiana to consult with doctors there

He later spoke about the health scare during an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman

mentioning that when the doctor told him he was having a heart attack, he went nuts and called him, quote, everything in the book

He said, John, you can say whatever you want to me or act any way you want, but a first-year medical student could tell you you've had a heart attack. And I went, oh

Nevertheless, Mellencamp didn't entirely quit smoking after that. He just cut down from four

packs a day to one. I'm just gonna, this is the number for the Surgeon General

Mellencamp's road to fame and fortune as an authentic rock and roll star wasn't traditional

or short. By the time he scored his first top 30 hit in the United States with I Need a Lover in

1979, he was almost 30 years old, which is fairly long in the tooth for the youth-oriented

music industry. And that came after he'd already recorded two misbegotten albums that each failed in

their own unique way. In 1975, Mellencamp, tired of playing in go-nowhere bar bands

moved to New York City to make it as a rock star. He found a champion in David Bowie's

former manager, Tony DeFries. Bowie had just unamicably parted ways with DeFries

and so the manager tried to position Mellencamp as the next Bowie by way of Bruce Springsteen

Saddled with the silly stage name of Johnny Cougar, Mellencamp released his first album

the DeVries-produced Chestnut Street Incident in 1976. It consisted primarily of covers of

familiar tunes like Jailhouse Rock and Hit the Road Jack. It sold only a paltry 12,000 copies

Afterwards, Mellencamp's label, MCA, refused to release his next album, The Kid Inside

and then dropped him entirely. Mellencamp experienced some hard-rocking success with the release of his albums American Fool and Uh-Huh in 1982 and 1983, respectively

Then he doubled down on the social commentary and soul-searching with 1985's Scarecrow and 1987's

The Lonesome Jubilee. Among the biggest sellers of his career, they went on to be certified five

times platinum and three times platinum, respectively. But the success of those albums

bears a painful origin, as Mellencamp created Scarecrow and The Lonesome Jubilee to cope with

the deaths of loved ones and how his family shaped him. As he told the New York Times in 1987

Let face it you are your parents whether any of us like it or not The lonesome jubilee like Scarecrow and the rest of my best stuff is about me and my family tree grappling against both the world and our own inner goddamned whirlwind His grandfather with whom he was

incredibly close, died of lung cancer in 1983. Mellencamp shared with The Times

just before his death, he called everybody into his bedroom, and although he wasn't a religious

person, he said, you know, I'm having a real bad beating of a time with the devil

It stopped me cold to see my grandpa so scared. Six hours later, he was gone

After that death, John Mellencamp's uncle Joe became, quote, the kindest soul you could imagine

But then he died, too. Mellencamp has revealed that the song Paper and Fire from The Lonesome Jubilee is about

Joe and his family's ingrained anger. It's widely known that Mellencamp was born in a small town, specifically the south-central

Indiana burg of Seymour. He's easily the town's most famous son, but the second most famous might be George Green

Me and Mellencamp have known each other since they were in the same Sunday school class

and they would later go on to write some songs together. In fact, Greene helped Mellencamp pin some of his best-known tunes, including Hurt So

Good, Crumbling Down, Rain on the Scarecrow, and Human Wheels. The last song they wrote together was Yours Forever for the soundtrack to the 2000 film

The Perfect Storm. Soon after, they had a falling out. Mellencamp wrote about their split in the liner notes to his 2010 box set On the Rural

Route 7609. Like when you're married, when you're friends with somebody for a long time, the more things

build up, the more things can go wrong. There were personal problems cross-pollinated with professional issues

George has written some great lyrics and we've written some great songs together, but I just

couldn't do it anymore." After that fallout, they never collaborated again, as Green died in 2011 at age 59 after

a short battle with an aggressive form of lung cancer. Mellencamp has projected an image as somebody who likes to get rowdy and mix it up

After all, he's the guy who fights authority, even though authority always wins

It turns out that his sons, Hud and Speck, have lived out the central battle described

in Authority song, Out in the Real World. In the early morning of July 16, 2017, Hud and Speck got into a fight in the parking

lot of a Jimmy John's sandwich shop in Bloomington, Indiana. According to the police report, a small group of men started mouthing off to the Mellencamp

boys, and then things escalated. HUD said that somebody hit him while Speck had blood on his face by the time police showed up

Speck was sentenced to community service and probation after pleading guilty to account of

public intoxication. This isn't the first time Speck and HUD have run afoul of the law. In 2015

Speck served four days of jail time for a misdemeanor battery charge over an incident in 2013

in which the brothers kicked a teenager they thought had hit Speck. At this rate

It looks like the troubles in the Mellencamp family will continue for generations to come