All About John Mellencamp's Colorful Love Life
John Mellencamp has been married three times, engaged to the one and only Meg Ryan and linked to supermodel Christie Brinkley. But he isn't exactly known for being a peach of a partner. "I throw fits, I gripe, I complain. I'm moody. Every bad thing that a fella can be, that's me," he once told Howard Stern.
Read on for more about Mellencamp's colorful relationship history, including details about his current girlfriend.
Who is John Mellencamp's girlfriend now?
In late August, Mellencamp told Bill Maher on the comedian's "Club Random" podcast that he'd been dating multimillionaire socialite Kristin Kehrberg for seven months.
"She's a beautiful 57-year-old woman who just walked into my apartment in New York unexpectedly," he said. "She was with a couple of friends. She walked in. She didn't know I was going to be there. I didn't know she was there. We met each other."
Kehrberg was married to Shelter Island advertising executive Richard “Dick” Tarlow for about 13 years, until his death in May 2022 at the age of 81. The couple reportedly bought a $16.5 million apartment on Fifth Avenue in 2016, although it's unclear if that's where she now lives.
How many times has John Mellencamp been married?
Mellencamp has been married three times.
Who are John Mellencamp's ex-wives?
Priscilla Esterline
Mellencamp and Esterline eloped while the singer was still in high school. The pair were expecting a child together at the time, and their first and only daughter, Michelle, was born in December 1970.
The pair made things work for a decade, but got divorced after Mellencamp met his soon-to-be-second-wife, Vicky Granucci, at a Hollywood party. The "Small Town" singer later described his infidelity as something of an inevitability, telling Entertainment Weekly in 1994, "How many guys you know in rock bands that have been divorced? There’s a reason for that. I don’t care who you are or who you think you are, you’re gonna fall into the pitfalls of that sooner or later. It’s rock & roll. I mean, what other reason would a guy ever pick up a guitar as a teenager?"
For her part, Esterline has kept out of the spotlight for all these years.
Vicky Granucci
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Granucci was cast in Mellencamp's music video for "Jack & Diane" and the two got married in 1981, not long after his first divorce was finalized. The pair went on to have two children together, but unfortunately, it appears their marriage ended for the same reason the singer's first one did: He was unfaithful.
While speaking to EW about his second marriage, Mellencamp said, "Back then I had the best of both worlds. I’d come home to Indiana, had two beautiful kids, a nice wife, the whole bit. Out on the road I was still 19. And [Vicky] just got sick of it. Can’t blame her. So I lost my kids. I thought, man, what have I done?"
In October 2022, Granucci's daughter Teddi Mellencamp (who you may know from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) revealed that her mother was in the ICU and thanked her sister Justice Mellencamp for being there alongside her. "[F]or a long time it was just the three of us doing the best we could," she wrote. "I am grateful to you both."
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Elaine Irwin
Mellencamp's third wife, Elaine Irwin, appeared in Mellencamp's music video for "Get a Leg Up" and on the album cover for Whenever We Wanted. The two got married in 1992 and divorced in 2011, making their marriage the singer's longest. They share two sons, Speck and Hud, and are reportedly on good terms.
How long did John Mellencamp and Meg Ryan date for?
Mellencamp and Ryan dated from 2011 to 2014 and then again from 2017 to 2019, at which point they called it quits for good.
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Did John Mellencamp and Meg Ryan ever get married?
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Despite getting engaged in 2018, Mellencamp and Ryan never tied the knot. After the pair ended their relationship in 2019, a friend of the singer told People, "He didn’t want to get married again. He loves her, but marriage never seemed to be a part of it. It’s unclear how important a marriage was to Meg. But they spent a lot of time together and it’s too bad they split. They really got along so well together."
Why did John Mellencamp and Megan Ryan break up?
It's impossible to say for sure, but Mellencamp has suggested that their breakup was his fault. Before they got back together in 2017, he told Howard Stern that the actress "hates me to death" and explained, "I think it's because I'm a child. I throw fits, I gripe, I complain. I'm moody. Every bad thing that a fella can be, that's me."
In 2019, he told Esquire, "I love Meg Ryan...She doesn't love me so much. She's a great girl. I'm just a s---ty boyfriend."
Did John Mellencamp ever date Christie Brinkley?
Photo by Myrna M. Suarez/Getty Images
He sure did. While Ryan and Mellencamp were on a break, the singer dated Christie Brinkley for a year. A friend close to the pair told Closer in 2015 (the year they got together), "Christie is just a bundle of positive energy, and that rubs off on John."
When they were still a couple, Brinkley recalled to People of their meeting, “I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re really opposites. He’s kind of a throwback from another time, like a silent cowboy.' But then we talked and realized that we do have a lot of shared interests.”
Who else has John Mellencamp dated?
In 2020, Mellencamp dated TV personality Jamie Sherrill and even met her children before moving on with real-estate agent Natasha Barrett.
In 2022, Us Weekly reported that Mellencamp had begun a relationship with skincare pro Marianelly Agosto after the singer's daughter Teddi introduced them. It's unclear when they ended their relationship.
Does John Mellencamp have kids?
You bet. Mellencamp is a dad to five adult children who range in age from 52 to about 28. He's also a grandpa to four.
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