Ananda Lewis, a beloved television personality, has tragically passed away after a battle with breast cancer. Best known for her role as a popular host on MTV during the network’s “veejay” era in the late 1990s, Ananda sadly died yesterday, Wednesday June 11.<\/p>\n
In October 2020, she revealed to her fans that she had been privately battling stage 3 breast cancer for two years, having avoided regular mammograms due to her fear of radiation exposure. At the age of 52, Ananda disclosed in a 2024 interview that her breast cancer had progressed to Stage 4 after she declined to undergo a mastectomy for treatment. The heartbreaking news of Ananda’s passing was confirmed by her sister Lakshmi in an emotional Facebook post. She wrote: “She’s free and in His heavenly arms [heart emojis]. Lord, rest her soul [prayer hands emoji].”, reports the Mirror. Lakshmi confirmed that Ananda passed away at her home in Los Angeles at 11:35am while under hospice care. She also revealed that Ananda’s 14 year old son graduated middle school on the same day as his mother’s death, making it a bittersweet day, as reported by TMZ.<\/p>\n
Ananda leaves behind her teenage son, her only child, whom she shares with her husband Harry Smith, 54, the younger brother of Oscar-winning actor Will Smith, 56.<\/p>\n
Ananda’s untimely death has sparked a wave of mourning on social media, particularly on X, formerly known as Twitter.<\/p>\n
Hearts are heavy as fans took to platform X to remember the remarkable #AnandaLewis after her sister confirmed the devastating news. One admirer lamented: “Omg Rip to the beautiful #AnandaLewis her sister confirmed,the news. If you’re a 90s\/early 2000s baby, then you definitely wanted to be her, at some point! The real “It girl”! She just had it! Phuck cancer! Sending love to every person that loved her. Get your rest beauty.”<\/p>\n
Another joined in the outpouring of grief on X: “Ananda Lewis was so iconic. Sleep peacefully angel,” while a third shared their respects: “Ananda Lewis was one of the quintessential 90’s baddies RIP.”<\/p>\n
Ananda Lewis captivated audiences as the host of popular shows like Total Request Live, Hot Zone, and Spring Break before leaving her mark with The Ananda Lewis Show, a daytime TV talk show she hosted which aired for two seasons.<\/p>\n
She was once proclaimed ‘the hip-hop generation’s reigning It Girl’ by none other than The New York Times.<\/p>\n
Lakshmi conveyed that a memorial service would be held soon and noted that numerous celebrities, who were once interviewed by Ananda, have already shown interest in paying homage to her in the forthcoming tribute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ananda Lewis, a beloved television personality, has tragically passed away after a battle with breast cancer. Best known…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3940],"tags":[73407,73409,73410,1378,4080,203,77,498,73408,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-178017","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-ananda-lewis","9":"tag-ananda-lewis-dead","10":"tag-ananda-lewis-death","11":"tag-breast-cancer","12":"tag-celebrities","13":"tag-celebrity-deaths","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-hollywood","16":"tag-mtv","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114669638642961434","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}