ANANDA Lewis, the Talk show and 90s MTV host, has died after a long battle with breast cancer.
Her sister Lakshmi announced the news of the 52-year-old’s death in a Facebook post shared earlier today.
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She said: “She’s free and in his heavenly arms. Lord, rest her soul.”
In 2020, Ananda revealed she had been diagnosed with stage three cancer.
She said she had not been getting regular mammograms due to a fear of radiation.
In 2024, the late TV host revealed her cancer had reached stage four after she went against medical advice and refused a double mastectomy.
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At the time she said her plan was to remove “excessive toxins” out of her body but later admitted she had made a mistake.
She told CNN: “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.
“I decided to keep my tumor and try to work it out of my body a different way. . . . I wish I could go back. It’s important for me to admit where I went wrong with this.”
Ananda rose to fame in the late 90s when she landed a role as one of MTV’s VJ’s where she hosted the likes of Total Request Live and Hot Zone.
In 1999, The New York Times described her as “the hip-hop generation’s reigning It Girl.”
She left MTV in 2001 to host her own talk show, The Ananda Lewis Show.
The TV star was born in Los Angeles in 1973. Her parents divorced when she was just two, an experience she said affected her relationship with her mum as an adult.
Following the divorce, she and her sister moved in with their grandparents where Ananda went on to attend an arts high school.
After graduating Howard University in 1995 she landed her first job as the host of BET’s Teen Summit during which time she interviewed then First Lady Hillary Clinton.
Ananda grew to be one of MTV’s most popular hosts – interviewing some of Hollywood’s biggest stars.
Bob Kusbit, then MTV’s senior vice president for production told The New York Times: ”In the past, our talent was sometimes just pretty people who could read cue cards,”
”But when we brought Ananda to MTV, we decided we were going to do a lot more live television, and I was first and foremost interested in her ability to do live TV.”
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