Ananda Lewis, the former MTV VJ, has died. She was 52. Her sister Lakshmi shared the news on Facebook, writing “She’s free, and in His heavenly arms.” Lewis was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020, originally attempting to treat it holistically.
Lewis began working at MTV in 1997, hosting such shows at Total Request Live and Hot Zone for the network. She also hosted topical news shows for the network, including one on violence after Columbine. “In the past our talent was sometimes just pretty people who could read cue cards,” MTV senior vice president for production Bob Kusbit told the New York Times. “But when we brought Ananda to MTV, we decided we were going to do a lot more live television.” She won a NAACP Image Award for hosting True Life: I Am Driving While Black. In 2001, Lewis left MTV to host syndicated talk show The Ananda Lewis Show.
Lewis was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer in 2020. During a CNN roundtable in 2024, Lewis said she had regrets about her decision to forgo a double mastectomy against medical advice. “My plan at first was to get out excessive toxins in my body… I decided to keep my tumor and try to work it out of my body a different way,” she said. “I wish I could go back. It’s important for me to admit where I went wrong with this.” Later, she published an essay in Essence stressing the need for preventative medicine. “We’re not meant to stay here forever. We come to this life, have experiences — and then we go,” she wrote. “I don’t want to spend one more minute than I have to suffering unnecessarily. That, for me, is not the quality of life I’m interested in. When it’s time for me to go, I want to be able to look back on my life and say, ‘I did that exactly how I wanted to.’”
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She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020.
