Ananda Lewis was one of MTV’s best personalities in the late 1990s. After pursuing her own hosting career in the 2000s, she became an advocate for women’s health when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Fortunately, Ananda had all the love and support from her family throughout the end of her life. As some of her fans know, Ananda was a mother, but was she also married? Find out here.
Ananda was an MTV VJ in the late 1990s, having hosted shows such as Hot Zone and Total Request Live. She interviewed a slew of celebrities, including the stars from Destiny’s Child and NSYNC, Britney Spears and Brandy.
In 2020, Ananda announced that she had been diagnosed with stage III breast cancer. Roughly four years later, she revealed in a CNN roundtable that her tumor had metastasized, but she went against medical advice and did not undergo a double mastectomy. Her cancer advanced to stage IV by 2024.
In early 2025, the former MTV VJ penned an essay with Essence about her cancer battle. In the piece, she also encouraged other women to seek medical care and get their regular check-ups.
“We’re not meant to stay here forever,” Ananda wrote. “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. 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.”
In mid-2025, Ananda died at the age of 52. Her exact cause of death was not disclosed.
