Ananda Lewis died at the age of 52 in June 2025, roughly five years after revealing her breast cancer diagnosis. During her final years, the late MTV VJ embarked on a journey to encourage women to maintain their health and undergo regular check-ups.
Below, Hollywood Life has compiled everything to know about Lewis’ life and health, including her breast cancer battle.
Who Was Ananda Lewis?
Lewis was known for her work as one of MTV’s VJs, hosting shows like Hot Zone and Total Request Live in the late 1990s. By the early 2000s, she left MTV to explore an independent path, hosting her own show, The Ananda Lewis Show.
How Did Ananda Lewis Die?
Lewis’s sister, Lakshmi, announced the news that she died in a June 2025 Facebook post, which read, “She’s free, and in His heavenly arms. Lord, rest her soul.” An exact cause of death was not disclosed, but Lewis died about five years after she revealed her breast cancer diagnosis.
Ananda Lewis’ Cancer Battle
In 2020, Lewis announced her stage III breast cancer diagnosis in an Instagram video. She opted not to get regular mammograms because she feared radiation. Since then, Lewis encouraged women to get their regularly scheduled mammograms and check-ups.
Just five months before she died, Lewis penned an essay published with Essence. The title of the post noted that she was living with stage IV breast cancer at that point.
“We’re not meant to stay here forever,” she acknowledged in the essay. “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. We all have that right. I know I’ve done the right thing for me. It might not be the right thing for anybody else, but it doesn’t have to be.”
Lewis also addressed female readers, advising them to “do everything in your power to avoid my story becoming yours.”
“If I had known what I know now 10 years ago, perhaps I wouldn’t have ended up here,” the MTV alum pointed out. “I would have been cold plunging, exercising consistently, making sure my vitamin D levels were good, detoxing my body on a monthly and yearly basis, and sleeping better. I would’ve been doing all the things I’ve been forced to do now, to keep my body from creating more cancer and remove what it has already made. As Black women, we tend to have higher chronic-stress rates. We have, in many cases, worse diets and sleep habits. Up until this diagnosis, I was sleeping only three or four hours a night. That, on top of toxic exposure, not drinking enough water and eating completely wrong, created a perfect storm for cancer.”
Was Ananda Lewis Married?
It’s unclear if Lewis was legally married, but she was linked to her longtime partner, Harry Smith, the brother of actor Will Smith. Smith is the CEO of Smith Global Media.
Did Ananda Lewis Have Kids?
Yes, Lewis shared her son, Langston, with Smith. They welcomed their child in 2011 and kept most of their family details away from the public eye.
This story originally appeared on Hollywoodlife
