Ananda Lewis, former MTV VJ who shared breast cancer journey, has died at 52

Ananda Lewis, seen here during the 2005 MTV Movie Awards in Los Angeles, has died. (Steve Granitz/WireImage/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

Ananda Lewis, a former MTV VJ who connected a generation of music fans to their favorite celebrities in the network’s heyday, has died. She was 52.

The news was confirmed by her sister Lakshmi Emory, who posted a tribute on Facebook. No further details were available.

CNN has reached out to representatives for Lewis for further comment and information.

Lewis had been battling breast cancer in recent years, recently speaking with CNN about her treatment. She announced in 2020 that she was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer after she conducted a self exam.

In her announcement at the time, she encouraged her followers to be up to date on their mammograms after revealing that she had not gotten hers leading up to her diagnosis.

“I need you to share this with the women in your life who may be as stubborn as I was about mammograms and I need you to tell them that they have to do it,” Lewis said in her announcement. “Early detection, especially for breast cancer, changes your outcome. It can save their life.”

Lewis revealed in October of last year that her cancer had progressed to stage IV.

Around that time, she sat down with CNN’s correspondents Stephanie Elam and Sara Sidner – who in 2024 was also diagnosed with breast cancer – to discuss their health journeys.

During their conversation, Lewis opened up to Sidner and Elam – who Lewis met during their freshman year at Howard University and who she counted as a best friend – about the course of treatment she chose.

“This journey is very personal and you have to do what works for you and only you,” Lewis told Elam and Sidner at the time.

The MTV VJ era

Lewis was a fixture on MTV’s programming during part of the network’s lineup in the ’90s, appearing on “MTV Live” as host, among other titles.

She also had her own talk show, “The Ananda Lewis Show,” from 2001 to 2002, hosting over 250 episodes.

Lewis was into the arts at an early age as a student at the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts where she studied theater, music, photography and dance for nine years, according to a biography.

She went on to attend Howard University in Washington DC, where she spent time as a youth activist, working for the Youth Leadership and Development Institute (YLDI) as a trainer working with teenagers in a program called “Youth at Risk.”

Lewis’ experience at the YLDI is what inspired her to audition for BET’s “Teen Summit” series, a program on which she served as the host.

“The kids in my program were like, ‘you have to go for that audition because you always tell us that life brings you great opportunities and it’s your job to step up. Now you’re not going to step up?’” Lewis told BET in 2022. “They were calling me a hypocrite. I’m grateful that I went and listened.”

Lewis hosted “Teen Summit” – a series that focused on social issues affecting young Black Americans – for three seasons. With a co-host, she interviewed everyone from basketball legend Kobe Bryant to former First Lady Hillary Clinton.

Following the success and notoriety that Lewis achieved from “Teen Summit,” she took on a new job as a host and “video jockey” at MTV in 1997. Lewis rose to fame during this time, hosting popular teen music shows including “Total Request Live” and “Hot Zone” on the music channel in its heyday.

Lewis maintained her passion for advocacy throughout her career. While at MTV, she moderated forums on school violence after the Columbine school shooting and hosted MTV’s news special “True Life: I Am Driving While Black” in 1999.

Since then, Lewis served as a correspondent on CBS’s “The Insider” and made guest appearances on various TV shows including “Celebrity Mole: Yucatán” and “America’s Top Dog.”

Toward the end of her chat with Elam and Sidner last year, Lewis discussed her approach to joy in life, while living with cancer.

“The cancer diagnosis caused me to change things in my life I never would have changed otherwise, that I needed to change but would not change,” she said. “And those changes have allowed me access to more of my joy, more of the time.”