June 16, 2025
Stephanie Elam is remembering her ‘journey or die,’ Ananda Lewis, who she noticed only a day earlier than she misplaced her battle with breast most cancers.
CNN’s Stephanie Elam is remembering her final go to along with her “journey or die,” Ananda Lewis, the enduring BET and MTV host who died at 52 from breast most cancers.
Elam was emotional with CNN anchor Sara Sidner as she recalled visiting Lewis simply someday earlier than her passing on June 11, USA At the moment reported. Elam shared that she drove straight from an in a single day shift protecting the Los Angeles protests to be by Lewis’s facet and maintain her hand. She had deliberate to return the next day, however Lewis handed away earlier than she may.
“After I obtained off the air, I appeared down and had a message from her stunning huge sister, who has been such a powerful champion for her and has stored me abreast of the whole lot. She messaged me and advised me that she handed away proper earlier than I completed that final hit,” Elam mentioned. “And, so it was too late.
“One factor that I need everybody to know is that she was at peace with this choice,” Elam added of Lewis. “She had come to grips with it.”
Elam, who met Lewis forward of their freshman yr on the acclaimed HBCU Howard College, mentioned the Teen Summit star’s well being situation modified faster than anticipated.
“We thought we had weeks, and it turned out that it was days, after which it was truly only a matter of hours,” Elam mentioned.
Lewis was a standout TV character within the ’90s and early 2000s. After graduating from Howard College, she obtained her begin internet hosting BET’s Teen Summit, and by 1997, she had joined MTV, the place she grew to become a family title on Whole Request Stay and Scorching Zone. In 2001, she stepped into the highlight to host her short-lived speak present, The Ananda Lewis Present.
In October, Lewis appeared on CNN with Elam and Sidner following Sidner’s analysis of stage 3 breast most cancers and spoke concerning the holistic method she took to fight the lethal illness.
“The most cancers analysis brought on me to vary issues in my life I by no means would have modified in any other case, that I wanted to vary however wouldn’t change,” Lewis mentioned on the time. “And people adjustments have allowed me entry to extra of my pleasure, extra of the time.”
Ananda Lewis is survived by her son, Langston Lewis, whom she shared with Harry Smith, Will Smith’s youthful brother.
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