June 16, 2025
Stephanie Elam is remembering her ‘experience 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 together with her “experience or die,” Ananda Lewis, the long-lasting 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 in the future earlier than her passing on June 11, USA At this time reported. Elam shared that she drove straight from an in a single day shift protecting the Los Angeles protests to be by Lewis’s aspect and maintain her hand. She had deliberate to return the next day, however Lewis handed away earlier than she might.
“After I acquired off the air, I regarded down and had a message from her lovely large sister, who has been such a powerful champion for her and has stored me abreast of every part. She messaged me and instructed 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 12 months 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 changed into days, after which it was really 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 acquired her begin internet hosting BET’s Teen Summit, and by 1997, she had joined MTV, the place she grew to become a family identify on Complete Request Reside and Scorching Zone. In 2001, she stepped into the highlight to host her short-lived discuss 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 in regards to the holistic strategy she took to fight the lethal illness.
“The most cancers analysis brought about me to alter issues in my life I by no means would have modified in any other case, that I wanted to alter however wouldn’t change,” Lewis mentioned on the time. “And people modifications 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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