Former MTV VJ Ananda Lewis Clarifies Decision to Refuse Mastectomy

TV personality Ananda Lewis is shedding light on her breast cancer journey.

“What I would like to clarify is that last year … last year October is when all the craziness started happening in my body. That’s when things got worse, that’s when I got elevated, I guess, to a stage IV,” Lewis, 51, said during a Wednesday, October 16, interview on Soulibration on BlackDoctor.org. “Those things sound scary to people, I get it. That was a year ago. Today I am fantastic.”

In a CNN sit-down on Tuesday, October 15, Lewis shared that her breast cancer progressed to stage IV. Lewis, who announced she had stage III cancer in 2020, chose to forego a double mastectomy.

“My plan at first 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,” she said on Tuesday. “I decided to keep my tumor and try to work it out of my body a different way. Looking back on that, I go, ‘You know what? Maybe I should have.’”

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One day later, Lewis said she’s “grateful” that her previous comments “opened up a lot of conversations that people don’t want to have.” She added, “We have to be more open to people making choices that work for them and being OK with it.”

“I still feel like I did the right thing. I need women to learn from my mistakes,” she said. “I need them to learn from my victories. I need them to learn from my fortitude that you can be OK. Any way you can be OK. Even if you die, you can be OK because everyone is going to confront that at some point in their lives. This is much more about how you want to live.”

Lewis said her “biggest mistake” was not receiving a mammogram. (While sharing her diagnosis in 2020, Lewis said she had refused mammograms for years because of a fear of radiation.)

“I still am on the fence about mammograms,” she said, before adding, “I’m gonna rephrase that. My biggest mistake was not staying on top of early detection. I could have used 3D ultrasound.”

While her mom pursued a “full conventional” path for treatment, Lewis wanted guidance for herself on “what else is possible.”

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Now, Lewis said she’s “happy” with her decision to refuse a mastectomy. “You just have to go with what works with your life,” she said. “That’s what I’m doing. It’s working for my life. I am more joyful. I am more myself. I am more buoyant. I know what I can survive now. I feel stronger than I’ve ever felt in my life. There are so many good things that have come from it, for me, from doing it this way.”

Lewis admitted that she “had some integration of conventional” approach as well. “I have done chemotherapy but tiny, micro amounts,” she said, adding that she has also undergone red light therapy and other treatments.

“I didn’t have surgery,” Lewis said. “I did make choices that I knew people were going to disagree with — people closest to me in my life disagreed with them when I was making them.”

For Lewis, it’s important that people “respect” one another’s decisions when it comes to their health. “We all got to make our own choices. I’m living with the consequences of mine,” she said.

“It might have been a mistake for me not to have surgery,” she continued. “I don’t know. I’m not going to go back, repeat that. Where I’m at now I’m fine with, and so whatever mistakes I’ve made, I’m in a great place.”