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Eight months after opening up about her breast cancer diagnosis, former MTV VJ Ananda Lewis has died at the age of 52.
The news of her death comes after Lewis sat down at a CNN roundtable to talk about her initial cancer diagnosis and the decisions she made following receiving that news.
Lewis’s sister Lakshmi confirmed the news of her death in a June 11 Facebook post. “She’s free, and in His heavenly arms. Lord, rest her soul.”
In a 2020 Instagram post, Lewis revealed she was first diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer in 2019, admitting that she had been forgoing her regular mammograms of a fear of radiation. Additionally, after receiving her diagnosis, Lewis also opted out of undergoing a double mastectomy, a surgery her doctors recommend she endure.
Five years later, during her sit down with CNN, published on Oct. 15, Lewis revealed that her cancer had progressed to stage 4.
While talking with her friend, CNN correspondent Stephanie Elam, Lewis shared she had some regret for how she handled her original diagnosis in 2019.
“I decided to keep my tumor and try to work it out of my body a different way,” Lewis explained. “Looking back on that I go, ‘Girl, maybe I should’ve (had the surgery).’”
Lewis continued, sharing that she “was not ready for” all of the “big things” the doctors were encouraging her to do at the time. “They wanted to take both (breasts),” she told CNN.
Instead, Lewis said she moved forward with chemotherapy treatments and alternative methods, such as improving her mental health, getting more sleep and drinking less alcohol.
At the end of every month, Lewis would monitor the cancer’s grow with ultrasounds. It was during the pandemic that she was told the cancer was spreading. In October 2023, a “scan showed that I had this kind of up my spine, through my hip, almost everywhere but my brain,” Lewis said.
“I’ve never been in pain like that in my life.”
“I don’t get afraid of things,” Lewis continued. “I was just like, ‘Fudge, man, I really thought I had this.’ I was frustrated. I was a little angry at myself.”
In an Oct. 16 interview with The New York Times, Lewis explained that she is now no longer a candidate for surgery or chemotherapy. At the time, she was now taking a drug that treats metastatic cancer.
“Those medications are working beautifully for me in combination with the other things I’m doing that help support my body,” she said at the time. “I’m really thriving right now,” adding that some of the tumors have shrunk so much that they are “almost undetectable.”
“I wish I could go back,” she said according to The New York Times. “It’s important for me to admit where I went wrong with this.”
As the National Breast Cancer Foundation reports, those diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer have a 5-year relative survival rate of 86%. Stage 4 breast cancer, which metastasizes throughout a person’s body, is considered incurable, but is treatable. The survival rate for Stage 4 breast cancer in women is 31%.
