Former MTV host Ananda Lewis says she has stage-four breast cancer

Ananda Lewis at Universal Studios Hollywood in March 2019. Photo / Getty Images

The former MTV host shared details of her experience navigating treatment for breast cancer in a CNN interview that aired on Tuesday.

Ananda Lewis, a former MTV host who has been battling breast cancer for nearly six years, shared in an interview this week that her cancer has reached stage four, a progression that came after she chose not to pursue some conventional treatments recommended by her doctors.

Lewis publicly shared her diagnosis in October 2020, when her cancer was at stage three. Her doctors recommended a double mastectomy, but Lewis opted for other treatments and alternative care methods instead.

“I decided to keep my tumour and try to work it out of my body a different way,” Lewis said, adding, “Looking back on that, I go, ‘You know what, maybe I should have’,” regarding pursuing the mastectomy.

She spoke about her experience navigating breast cancer in an interview that aired on Tuesday with CNN correspondent Stephanie Elam, a close friend of hers, alongside Sara Sidner, a CNN journalist who has also publicly shared about her fight with breast cancer. Lewis and Sidner candidly discussed their approaches to treatment and how their lives had been changed by breast cancer, which is the second-leading cause of cancer death in women, according to the American Cancer Society.

In the days since the interview, Lewis has faced a wave of criticism about the decisions she made for her treatment. She told the Washington Post on Friday that despite the backlash, she doesn’t regret declining the double mastectomy, which she described as a “radical, harsh and life-altering” surgery.

Ananda Lewis is a TV personality who worked as an MTV video jockey in the 90s before carving her own career with The Ananda Lewis Show. Photo / Getty Images

“To have to be attacked on top of it, it’s like, no wonder people stay quiet, but I think it’s even more important to share stories because other people can benefit from them,” Lewis, 51, told the Post. “And you know, I’m tough. I can take it.”

A native of San Diego and graduate of Howard University, Lewis rose to fame in the 1990s as a television host. She hosted BET’s Teen Summit, where her interview with then-First Lady Hillary Clinton earned an NAACP Image Award. Lewis worked as an MTV veejay for years before she started The Ananda Lewis Show in 2001.

Lewis, who has a family history of breast cancer, shared in an October 1, 2020 Instagram post that she had stage-three breast cancer. By then, it had been nearly two years since her January 2019 diagnosis.

But Lewis said she could have been diagnosed years before – if she had not “refused mammograms” for “a really long time”.

At the time, Lewis believed that the small amount of radiation exposure during mammograms “was going to do more damage than good” – a mindset that has since changed, she told the Post. Growing up, she’d also watched her mother get mammograms for three decades until she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“I didn’t look at it as a good tool because I look at it as: [if it’s] something that was supposed to be preventative, then why didn’t it prevent it for her, right?” Lewis said. “But that’s a misunderstanding. It’s preventative because you get to see it earlier and do something about it.”

In her 2020 Instagram post, Lewis, who said she had done self-exams at first, urged women who were watching to schedule their mammograms.

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A post shared by Ananda Lewis (@imanandalewis)

At stage three, depending on the type of breast cancer, physicians typically recommend a combination of treatments, including surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and hormonal therapy, said Carmen Calfa, a breast medical oncologist at the University of Miami’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Centre.

“When somebody is faced with a diagnosis, it’s a lot to take in, and [there’s] a lot you have to adjust to,” Calfa said.

As she considered treatment options, Lewis told the Post, the double mastectomy felt like a procedure that would “take a quarter of my body”. Instead, she pursued detoxing, changing her diet, and trying other alternative treatments and natural protocols to “get out the excessive toxins in my body”, she said during the CNN interview.

During the pandemic, Lewis said, her tumour kept growing, and she continued to pursue various treatments, including some conventional options. After that, Lewis told the Post, her breast cancer was at stage two.

But later, in October 2023, a scan showed that her cancer had spread to other parts of her body.

That time, Lewis said in the CNN interview, was “the worst I’d ever been”.

“I’ve never been in pain like that in my life,” she said. “And it was the first time I ever had a conversation with death.”

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A post shared by Stephanie Elam (@stephelamtv)

Stage-four breast cancer, when cancer cells have metastasized to other organs or to bones, is considered incurable, Calfa said. Treatment options normally become less aggressive compared with the other stages.

“Stage four becomes more of the marathon that you’re going to have to embrace,” Calfa said.

At stage four, Lewis said in the interview this week, she “needed some medicine for sure”.

She received more chemotherapy and took medications recommended by her doctors. Lewis added in the CNN interview that she has continued to keep up with other forms of medicine, including acupuncture, “because it’s important for my body to feel good”.

Today, Lewis said, she is doing “much better”. Some of her tumours, she said, “are almost undetectable now”.