Ananda Lewis

Sarasvati Ananda Lewis
Lewis in 2007
Born	Sarasvati Ananda Lewis (1973-03-21)March 21, 1973 Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Died	June 11, 2025(2025-06-11) (aged 52) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Alma mater	Howard University L.A. Trade–Tech
Occupations	Television host carpenter model social activist
Years active	1993–2025
Children	1

Sarasvati Ananda Lewis (March 21, 1973 – June 11, 2025) was an American broadcast journalist, human rights activist, two-time NAACP Image Award recipient, distinguished Howard University alumna, professional carpenter and prominent HBCU community member. Described as "a bright star who was the voice of a generation," Ananda Lewis served humanity as a cultural role model and staple television personality for BET and MTV during the late 1990s, when she became best known for her social advocacy works highlighted by the epic interviews she conducted with the likes of Hillary Clinton, Kobe Bryant and Louis Farrakhan for shows including BET's Teen Summit and MTV's True Life: I Am Driving While Black. This, in addition to Lewis' culturally iconic spot as an MTV VJ on Total Request Live, a role out that was capped with her accomplished -- yet quietly-challenging -- TRL live breaking news coverage over the August 25, 2001 plane crash that caused the sudden and unexpected death of Aaliyah, who was one of Lewis' close personal friends. Just weeks following Aaliyah's death, Lewis went on to debut The Ananda Lewis Show, a nationally-syndicated American television talk show that ran for just two seasons. "She hosted the syndicated The Ananda Lewis Show, designed to tackle serious subjects as opposed to more sensationalized counterparts such as the Ricki Lake Show and the Jerry Springer Show," reports Cedric Mobley for Howard University. "After a break from television, she became a correspondent for The Insider, delving into the intricacies of the entertainment industry." Lewis then stepped away from the spotlight once again as she answered the call to serve as caregiver for her grandmother -- during which time it is said that her call to carpentry came about. "She took on the role of caregiver for her grandmother and needed to take care of her home," writes Mobley. "Instead of relying on others for repairs, she enrolled in a Los Angeles community college." After earning her associate's degree in carpentry, Lewis returned to television to host the 2019 revival of While You Were Out on TLC. According to IMDb, Lewis also served as an actress and producer, known for On the Line (2001), Nora's Hair Salon II (2008) and Method & Red (2004).

In October 2020, Lewis announced to her Instagram followers that she had been battling stage 3 breast cancer for the previous two years. She died on June 11th, 2025 at age 52, seven years after her cancer diagnosis.

Early life and education

The second-born daughter of Yvonne and Stanley Lewis, Sarasvati Ananda Lewis was born on March 21, 1973, in Los Angeles, California. By the time she was two-years-old, the Lewis' divorced and she and her sister, Lakshmi, moved with their mother to live with their grandmother in San Diego.

Lewis's mother worked as an account manager for Pacific Bell, and her father as a computer-animation specialist. Her sister, Lakshmi, is a physician. Lewis's parents divorced when Ananda was two years old, and her mother moved with her daughters to San Diego, to be near her own mother. Her mother took an extended trip to Europe to escape the pain of her failed marriage, leaving Ananda and Lakshmi with their grandmother. During her absence which lasted less than a year, Lewis felt abandoned saying, "It was like she nurtured me and carried me in her womb and then completely left." Lewis often fought with her mother while growing up and rarely saw her father, who remarried. Lewis and her grandmother also frequently "locked horns" while she was growing up.

Lewis struggled with a speech impediment and stuttered until she was eight years old. In grade school, she earned a reputation for outspokenness. In 1981, she entered herself in the Little Miss San Diego Contest, a beauty pageant, and won. During the talent portion of the competition, Lewis performed a dance routine, which she had choreographed herself, to Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney's ballad "Ebony and Ivory". After her win, Lewis attracted the attention of a talent agent and began working in local theater productions and on television. In fourth grade, she enrolled at the San Diego School of Creative and Performance Arts (SCPA), a public magnet school, where she remained for nine years. At the age of thirteen, Lewis began volunteering as a tutor and counselor at a Head Start facility. Lewis was inspired by the work and decided to become a teacher or a psychologist, with the goal of helping young people. However, Lewis's family urged her to follow a more lucrative career path, specifically law. She majored in history at Howard University in Washington, D.C., from which she graduated cum laude in 1995.

Career

Early career

While a student at Howard University in 1993, Lewis was featured prominently in the hit R&B music video by fellow HU alumni Shai, "Baby, I'm Yours", filmed on campus. She portrayed the love interest of vocalist Carl "Groove" Martin.

Throughout college Lewis had volunteered as a mentor with the group Youth at Risk and at the Youth Leadership Institute. She was considering attending graduate school to pursue a master's degree in education when she learned that auditions were going to be held for the job of on-screen host of BET's Teen Summit. She said that the children she was working with that summer were the main ones pushing her to go to the auditions.

Lewis's audition was successful and she became the host of Teen Summit. For three seasons she discussed serious issues affecting teenagers for a television audience of several million. The show's topical, debate-driven format enabled Lewis to follow her passion for helping young people, and use her skills she had acquired at the performing-arts school in San Diego. In 1996, on an installment of the show entitled "It Takes a Village", Lewis interviewed then-First Lady Hillary Clinton, whose book with that title had been published earlier in the year. Also in 1996, Teen Summit was nominated for a CableACE Award, and the next year the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) presented Lewis with an Image Award for her work on Black Entertainment Television (BET). Soon afterward the cable network MTV offered Lewis a position as a program host and video jockey. The thought of leaving Teen Summit was painful for her; indeed, several sources quoted her as recalling that she "cried for three weeks" while pondering her choices. In opting to move to MTV, the deciding factor was the possibility of greatly increasing the size of her viewing audience and the potential for influencing America's youth.

Lewis hosted and VJed a variety of shows. She began as one of the hosts of MTV Live alongside Carson Daly and Toby Amies, the initial flagship show of the network's new era from its Times Square studios, and briefly hosted 12 Angry Viewers. MTV Live merged with Total Request to become Total Request Live, a daily top ten video-countdown show where she was a frequent co-host and occassional main host. She also hosted Hot Zone, which offered both music videos and Lewis's interviews of musicians and others, and occasionally MTV Jams. On a notable installment of Hot Zone, she berated the rapper Q-Tip about the number of scantily clad dancers in one of his videos, which she regretted not handling with more nuance. In a reference to Lewis's broadcasting savvy, Bob Kusbit, MTV's senior vice president for production, told Douglas Century for The New York Times on November 21, 1999, "In the past our talent was sometimes just pretty people who could read cue cards. But when we brought Ananda to MTV, we decided we were going to do a lot more live television." MTV also called upon Lewis to host other topical programs including two MTV forums on violence in schools, which aired after the Columbine High School massacre and several memorial tributes for the singer Aaliyah, who died in a plane crash in 2001. In 2001, Lewis earned another NAACP Image Award, for her hosting of the MTV special True Life: I Am Driving While Black.

In 1998, while at MTV, Lewis made headlines when she announced that she intended to remain abstinent for at least six months. She said,

I made the decision for selfish reasons, but I'm going public here because I realized I might be able to help other girls, too. I know the kind of drama that being sexually active brings to your life. I felt that if it was good for me to take a break, it might be good for other young girls, too. You see, I think I would be a whole different person if I hadn't had sex so early. Everybody was saying, "Do it!" but nobody ever said, "You don't have to do it". I think hearing that would have made a huge difference in my life.

Also during that period Lewis became a familiar presence at celebrity-attended events in and around New York City. "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 at the height of Lewis' fame. "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."

Later career

In 2000, People included Lewis on its list of the worlds' "50 Most Beautiful People". In 2001, Lewis decided to leave MTV in order to start her own talk show. The Ananda Lewis Show debuted on September 10, 2001, after much advance press in which Lewis was compared to Oprah Winfrey. Lewis continued to do special presentations for MTV after her show had begun. Lewis's series which was syndicated by King World Productions, targeted women between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four by addressing such issues as domestic violence and breast cancer; it was billed as an alternative to the sensationalism and provocative offerings of Jerry Springer and Ricki Lake, whose talk shows were then dominating daytime ratings. Lewis's show aired on some WB and NBC stations before being canceled after one season. Her show's producers stated: "We started on a Monday and then there was the World Trade Center bombing the next day, and everything has become a mess since then," Roger King, the chairman and CEO of King World Productions and CBS Enterprises said. Lewis later expressed regret for doing the show, reflecting that she felt she was not ready to handle the responsibility of a full-time hosting role and that the timing was wrong for the project. Lewis then worked briefly for BET.

In 2004, Lewis became the chief correspondent on celebrity subjects for the nationally syndicated, nightly entertainment program The Insider, a spin-off of the popular Entertainment Tonight. In the spring of 2005, she interviewed Paris Hilton, Dylan Ryder, Don Cheadle, Ryan Phillippe, and actress Dyan Cannon. Lewis herself made guest appearances on several sitcoms.

Also in 2004, Lewis also appeared on the ABC network's reality show called Celebrity Mole: Yucatán. This reality series won an Emmy for Outstanding Achievement for Enhanced Television. An avid animal lover, Lewis served as co-host of the A&E television-network show America's Top Dog and as a spokesperson for the Humane Society. She was known to frequently introduce her two pet chihuahuas to interviewers. She was also a spokesperson for Reading Is Fundamental, a nonprofit literacy group.

Personal life

Lewis credited her mother, grandmother, and sister for providing her with a positive, supportive environment. By her own account, as she grew older, she felt increasingly upset by her parents' divorce. In adulthood, she healed the rifts with both parents. Lewis was a good friend of singer and actress Aaliyah before her accidental death. Lewis had six godchildren. In 2011, Lewis gave birth to son Langston, her first child, with Harry Smith, the brother of actor Will Smith. She lived in the San Fernando Valley until her death.

Illness and death

On October 2, 2020, Lewis revealed that she'd had breast cancer for two years. She said that her aversion to mammograms led to late diagnosis and begged the public to get cancer screenings as soon as necessary. On October 15, 2024, she announced that her cancer had progressed to stage IV after six years. Lewis refused medical treatment for her cancer, saying in 2024 that her plan "was to get out excessive toxins in my body. I felt like my body is intelligent, I know that to be true. Our bodies are brilliantly made... I decided to keep my tumor and try to work it out of my body a different way," and that she regretted not having earlier consented to the mastectomy her doctors recommended. Lewis died in Los Angeles on June 11, 2025, at the age of 52.

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Work	Result
1996	CableACE Award	Children's Educational or Informational Special or Series	Teen Summit − "Living on the Street . . . On the Real"	Nominated
1997	NAACP Image Award	Outstanding Youth Series	Teen Summit − "It Takes a Village"	Won
2000		Outstanding News, Talk or Information – Special	True Life − "I Am Driving While Black"	Won

External links

• Ananda Lewis at Instagram
• Ananda Lewis at AskMen.com
• Ananda Lewis at IMDb
• Ananda Lewis discography at Discogs