The hip-hop world is mourning the loss of a trailblazing talent and beloved model Ananda Lewis, who died Wednesday (June 11). Her sister Lakshmi Emory confirmed the news in a Facebook post.
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"She’s free, and in His heavenly arms," Emory wrote. "Lord, rest her soul."
If you are of a certain age, you've probably either once emulated or had a full-blown crush on the MTV veejay and BET’s "Teen Summit" host. In recent years she has kept out of the public eye, but resurfaced announcing to fans she had been battling stage 3 breast cancer in 2020.
She shared the news via an emotional video on Instagram that October, in tandem with Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The revelation came as a surprise to many, including those of her inner circle, as she apologized for keeping the news to herself, acknowledging that the toll of a cancer diagnosis and her subsequent efforts to combat it were incredibly stressful.
Lewis, who is of African American and Native American descent, was born on March 21, 1973, in Los Angeles. She was the daughter of an account manager mother and a computer-animation specialist father in Los Angeles. After her parents divorced, her mother moved her and her sister to San Diego, before her mom ultimately left for Europe. Her first name means "bliss" in Sanskrit (an ancient Indic language).
Despite struggling with a speech impediment, stuttering until she was eight years old, Lewis' rise to America's TV screens began in the mid-90s as a media powerhouse. The Howard University student, who even starred as a prominent love interest in R&B group Shai's music video "Baby, I'm Yours," filmed on the HBCU's campus, auditioned for the on-screen hosting gig of BET's "Teen Summit."
And the rest was history.
She became the first host of the popular talk-show that dealt with the everyday issues Black teenagers faced. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) presented the model with an Image Award for her work on the show before MTV offered her a position as a program host and video jockey (VJ). Despite crying "for three weeks," unable to make a decision, according to close sources of Lewis, she took the job with MTV. Lewis would go on to VJ MTV's "Total Request Live" and "Hot Zone."
"In the past our talent was sometimes just pretty people who could read cue cards," Bob Kusbit, MTV's senior vice president for production Bob Kusbit told The New York Times in 1999. "But when we brought Ananda to MTV, we decided we were going to do a lot more live television."
Her tenure in media continued, interviewing then-First Lady Hillary Clinton and earning yet another NAACP Image Award in 2001 for her hosting chops on MTV's special, True Life: I Am Driving While Black.
"If you don't recognize the name Ananda Lewis, it may be because you're older than 23, or not a hip-hop star, or not a regular supplicant in the land of the velvet ropes," Century wrote about the 1981 Little Miss San Diego Contest beauty pageant winner. "In the last year, Ms. Lewis has emerged as the hip-hop generation's reigning 'It Girl,' meaning she is not just an MTV personality but a woman whose looks and attitudes have made her perpetually in demand."
Lewis was named in PEOPLE'S "50 Most Beautiful People" list in 2000, and the following year, she left MTV for a bigger platform... her own. She starred in her own syndicated daytime talk show, "The Ananda Lewis Show," that debuted on September 10, 2001. Media folks even compared her series to Oprah Winfrey. Unfortunately, the timing of its launch was incredibly difficult.
The show debuted the day before the September 11th terrorist attacks in New York, and the national tragedy, which rightfully so significantly impacted television programming and viewership, made it difficult for new shows to find their footing and audience. The show was subsequently canceled after one season.
Lewis herself later spoke about feeling unhappy with the talk show format and the stress of the career, mentioning it was a "drowning" experience for her and that caring for her ailing grandmother also influenced her decision to step away from that spotlight. Speaking of family, Lewis gave birth to her son Langston in 2011, her first child, with Harry Smith, Will Smith's brother.
The avid animal lover, who had been known to frequently introduce her two pet chihuahuas to interviewers, went on to serve as co-host of the A&E's "America's Top Dog." She was also a spokesperson for the Humane Society.
Lewis told Essence Magazine how "breast cancer entered my life in a very sneaky way," in a January/February 2025 feature.
"I was in the shower one morning in December 2018, and I felt a lump in my breast. Since it was in the same place that the mastitis had occurred, I hoped it was related to that," she recalled. "It was a little larger than a pea but definitely noticeable. My next step was to get a thermography scan, which uses a heat-sensing camera to find hot spots in the body. Cancer tends to appear really hot."
She confessed how "it registered very clearly that something was going on—so in January 2019, I found a breast specialist and went in for a biopsy" before, "The doctor called me the next day and told me the material came back as positive for invasive carcinoma. It was ER/PR positive, HER2 negative breast cancer, stage 3." Lewis added how she's not "a fearful person," so "instead of panicking, I made a game plan."
Lewis is survived by her son Langston, her sister Lakshmi, and her parents, Yvonne and Stanley.
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