Ananda Lewis has died at the age of 52 after losing her nearly seven-year battle with breast cancer.
The former MTV VJ passed away on Wednesday, June 11, as announced by her sister Lakshmi Emory via a Facebook post.
She shared a black and white portrait of Ananda with the caption: ‘She’s free, and in His heavenly arms. Lord, rest her soul [prayer emoji]’
Ananda’s untimely death fell on the same day as her 14-year-old son Langston’s middle school graduation, Lakshmi revealed to TMZ.
She shares the teen boy, her only child, with husband Harry Smith, 54, who is the younger brother of Oscar-winning actor Will Smith, 56.
The media trailblazer announced she was battling stage III breast cancer in 2020.
In October 2024, she revealed that her cancer had advanced to stage IV after deciding not to undergo a double mastectomy when she was first diagnosed.
Ananda Lewis died at the age of 52 on Wednesday, June 11 after losing her nearly seven-year battle with breast cancer; the star seen in 2019
As a fixture on MTV in the late 1990s, Ananda hosted hit shows like Total Request Live, Hot Zone and Spring Break; Ananda pictured with Justin Timberlake, Chris Kirkpatrick and JC Chasez of NSYNC in 2000
As a fixture on MTV in the late 1990s, Ananda hosted hit shows like Total Request Live, Hot Zone and Spring Break.
Lewis nabbed her very own daytime TV talk show, The Ananda Lewis Show, in 2001, which ran for one season.
She earned two NAACP Image Awards during her career and was once deemed the ‘the hip-hop generation’s reigning It Girl’ by The New York Times.
Lakshmi told TMZ that her sister died at her home in Los Angeles at 11:35am on Wednesday, June 11. She was in hospice care at the time of her death.
Lakshmi said that a memorial would be held ‘in a few weeks’ and that celebrities who Ananda previously interview have already expressed interest in paying tribute to her at the upcoming service.
In October 2020, Ananda shocked fans when she announced on social media that she’d been privately battling stage III breast cancer.
‘I have been fighting to get cancer out of my body for almost two years,’ she shared in the six-minute video posted to Instagram.
She also admitted that she’d avoided getting regular mammograms due to fear of radiation exposure.
‘I have refused mammograms… that was a mistake. I watched my mom get mammogrammed for 30 years almost and at the end of that she had breast cancer,’ she explained.
Four years after her announcement, Ananda confirmed that her breast cancer had metastasized and advanced to stage IV.
She spoke about deciding not to undergo a double mastectomy in an October 2024 interview with CNN.
Ananda’s untimely death fell on the same day as her 14-year-old son Langston’s middle school graduation; Ananda and Langston pictured in 2019
Lewis’ death was confirmed by her sister Lakshmi Emory in a Facebook post
Lewis explained that she had originally planned to ‘keep my tumor and try to work it out of my body a different way.’
But when her tumor eventually metastasized, Ananda realized that she probably ‘should have’ gone through with the life-saving surgery.
‘My plan at first was to get out excessive toxins in my body. I felt like my body is intelligent, I know that to be true. Our bodies are brilliantly made,’ Lewis explained to CNN’s Stephanie Elam.
‘I decided to keep my tumor and try to work it out of my body a different way,’ she continued, before adding: ‘Looking back on that, I go, ‘You know what? Maybe I should have.”
Instead, Lewis pursued homeopathic remedies as well as medication and radiation, and although her situation improved for a while, she discovered last year that her cancer had spread.
‘My lymph system really flared up. It was the first time I ever had a conversation with death because I felt like: This is how it is,’ she said candidly.
‘I was just like, “Fudge man, I really thought I had this.” I was frustrated, I was a little angry at myself, and I said, “Man, listen. I know you’re coming for me at some point. But I don’t want it to be now. And if you could just wait, I promise when you do come, I’m gonna make it fun for you.”‘
‘I literally had that conversation laying in my bed. I couldn’t get out of bed for, like, eight weeks,’ Lewis added.
The former MTV VJ passed away on Wednesday, June 11; seen in 2007
Ananda died at her home in Los Angeles at 11:35am on Wednesday, June 11. She was in hospice care at the time of her death; Ananda seen in 1998
Referring to her decision to not have surgery, Lewis said: ‘My quality of life was very important to me, like there’s a certain things I know I’m not gonna be okay with and I know myself. I want to want to be here, so I had to do it a certain way, for me.’
Days after her CNN interview, Lewis clarified her comments about refusing a double mastectomy.
In reply to a fan on Instagram, she explained that she did ‘say no to the original conventional plan that was laid out before me at first’ and ‘chose the integrative approach early on.’
However, she claimed that the ‘treatments I was getting closed down and the monitoring of the tumor stopped’ due to the COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020.
‘Later, I felt the tumor growing and knew I had to re-consider my options with this new barrier of lockdowns. That’s when I inquired again (after having said no which I stand behind as my choice in that moment) about surgery and was told it wasn’t even something I could consider unless it was emergency surgery because that’s all hospitals were doing at that time,’ Lewis claimed.
‘There are a TON of moving parts on most people’s cancer journey and mine is no exception. I don’t know that I would’ve opted for the surgery, I just knew I needed to adapt and take another look at all my options if I wanted to live.’
Lewis said that she chose to be transparent about her cancer journey so that ‘other women may learn from it, good or bad.’
Ananda spoke about her cancer battle more recently in an essay published in the January 2025 issue of Essence magazine.
The star stressed the importance of cancer prevention, dubbing it the ‘real cure.’
In October 2020, Ananda shocked fans when she announced on social media that she’d been privately battling stage III breast cancer for nearly two years
‘I have refused mammograms… that was a mistake,’ she told her 219,000 followers at the time
‘We’re not meant to stay here forever. We come to this life, have experiences — and then we go. Being real about that with yourself changes how you choose to live. I don’t want to spend one more minute than I have to suffering unnecessarily,’ she wrote.
‘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.”
Lewis spoke about her Essence essay in an Instagram reel posted in February.
The star appeared healthy and full of life as she showed off her copy of the magazine for her 219,000 followers.
Lewis’s last Instagram post was made on March 7 as she paid tribute to the legendary R&B hitmaker Roberta Flack, who died on February 24 of Roberta Flack at age 88.
She wrote: ‘Rest in Power [heart emoji] Thank you for shining your light so bright as Roberta Flack and leaving a musical legacy that will bless us forever’
Lewis was born in Los Angeles in 1973 but her parents’ divorce when she was just two-years-old led to her being raised by her mother and grandmother in San Diego, California along with her sister Lakshmi.
She attended an arts high school before studying at historic Howard University in Washington, DC. She graduated from in 1995.
Lewis first garnered TV fame as a host of BET’s youth talk-show Teen Summit in Washington D.C., where she famously interviewed then-First Lady Hillary Clinton.
In a 1999 interview with Teen People, Lewis said that her interview with Clinton was what ‘got me noticed at MTV and in August of 1997, I moved to New York and started working there.’
Four years after her announcement, Ananda confirmed that her breast cancer had metastasized and had advanced to stage IV; seen in February 2025
She spoke about deciding not to undergo a double mastectomy in an October 2024 interview with CNN
Ananda quickly became a fan-favorite fixture on MTV and interviewed many of the major stars of the late 90s and early 2000s, including Britney Spears and Beyonce.
In 2001, the star took a major career leap as she left MTV to become the host of her very own daytime talk show.
Ananda told Teen People at the time that she ‘wanted a change’ and that it ‘was a matter of proving to myself that I can do [this].’
The Ananda Lewis Show premiered in 2001 but was short-lived as it went off the air after one season.
However, Ananda voiced regrets about the career move during a 2020 interview.
‘I wish I had stopped the people that wanted me to do the show and said, “Not yet, it’s a little too early to do this,”‘ she told Shondaland.com.
‘It was overkill for me. It wasn’t what I felt like I signed up for.’
She served as a correspondent for The Insider from 2004 to 2005.
Lewis then became a carpenter and hosted the 2019 revival of While You Were Out on TLC.