Former MTV veejay Ananda Lewis is standing her ground despite fan concern over her decision not to undergo the doctor-recommended surgery for her Stage III breast cancer, which has spread and is now Stage IV.
“You can’t spend your time wishing you did things differently. You will never live. I’m not going to spend time regretting. I understand that people don’t get it,” she told host Shameika Rhymes on the radio show Soulibration from BlackDoctor.org on Wednesday (October 16). “They’re entitled to their opinion.”
Lewis, diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer in early 2024, drew backlash earlier this week over her round-table discussion with CNN’s Stephanie Elam and CNN anchor Sara Sidner. She stated she chose not to have a double mastectomy, going against doctor’s recommendations, after long refusing a mammogram. “I decided to keep my tumor and try to work it out of my body a different way,” Lewis earlier said.
The video caused a swirl across the internet, with commenters under the CNN video applauding the “important conversation” but urging others to think critically.
“I’ve been a medical assistant for 25 years and I think one of the worst things that I ever hear a female patient say is ‘I’m afraid to get a mammogram because my friend says it’s painful,’” a top comment read.
“15 year breast cancer survivor…I found a lump and had a double mastectomy with single stage reconstructive surgery. A double mastectomy was a no brainer for me. Her body…her choice,” was another.
However, Lewis told Rhymes: “I still feel like I did the right thing. I need women to learn from my mistakes. I need them to need them to learn from my victories.”
“Even if you die, you can be okay because everybody’s going to confront that at some point in their lives, so this is really much more about how you want to live.”
The former Teen Summit host continued: “My biggest mistake is the one I’ve shared from the beginning: not getting my mammograms.”
The 51-year-old initially opened up about being diagnosed with stage III breast cancer in a 2020 Instagram post, saying that she’d refused mammograms for years over a fear of radiation exposure.
“I still am on the fence about mammograms,” she added, before backtracking by saying: “I’m gonna rephrase that. My biggest mistake was not staying on top of early detection. I could have used 3D ultrasound.”
Lewis shared that her decision to not look into surgery was largely influenced by watching her mother, who pursued conventional treatment. She also shared that she tried “integrative” treatment, a mix of conventional and homeopathic methods, explaining, ”I’ve done chemotherapy but tiny micro amounts.” She’s also tried red light therapy and enemas, “high-dose vitamin C IVs followed by hyperbaric chambers,” as well as other treatments.
“I didn’t have surgery. 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.”
“It might have been a mistake for me not to have surgery. I don’t know,” Lewis continued. “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.”
“We all got to make our own choices,” she concluded. “I’m living with the consequences of mine.”
A California native, Lewis transformed her desire to work with children into TV fame. The Howard University graduate got her start on the BET discussion series Teen Summit before becoming an MTV fixture. She was an MTV veejay from the late 1990s until 2001, leaving the network to host her own broadcast syndicated television talk show, The Ananda Lewis Show. She was also a correspondent for The Insider from 2004 to 2005.