Ananda Lewis was at peace during her final days.
The MTV VJ sent a heartbreaking final text message to her best friend, CNN correspondent Stephanie Elam, which she read aloud in an emotional interview on CNN on Thursday.
Elam said Lewis texted her that things took a different turn than she would have liked after her health started rapidly declining.
“This is part of the text she sent me: ‘You know my feelings on this. We all go. These bodies are on loan and must be returned. We come in love and choose to leave it with love as well,’” Elam shared with CNN anchor Sara Sidner — who has herself battled stage 3 breast cancer — while fighting back tears.
“And then she goes on to say, ‘I love you my wonderful lifelong bestie of besties.’”
Lewis died on Wednesday after battling breast cancer since 2020. She was 52 years old.
The iconic TV host was open about choosing not to get a double mastectomy and chemotherapy in favor of more holistic treatment during a candid conversation with Sidner and Elam that aired on CNN in October 2024.
“She was at peace with this decision, she was calm about it,” Elam said. “She wanted to go after breast cancer the way she did it, and, I love my girl but she was hard-headed.”
“She wanted to do it her own way despite the fact that so many of us close to her wanted her to try the way that you did it, right?” she continued, referring to Sidner choosing to get a double mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation.
“But this is what she wanted to do and she was totally at peace with it.”
Elam, who called Lewis her “ride or die” for most of her life, said that Lewis’ loved ones thought they would have a few more weeks with her. However, her health rapidly declined to the point where she only had hours left to live.
Part of Lewis’ legacy was her conversation with Sidner about battling breast cancer in different ways, Elam stressed, noting that she felt the two truly helped saved lives.
“And I’m so proud of her for being open and courageous and honest to have this conversation, because if she has encouraged anyone to get out there and to get their mammograms, getting their testing done … I know it’s uncomfortable but please do it — save a life,” Elam said. “Be here, thrive. That’s what she wanted people to know.”
Lewis explained in the October 2024 interview that after getting diagnosed with breast cancer, she wanted to keep the tumor in her body and “work it out in a different way.” She said she got rid of excessive toxins in her body by changing her eating and sleeping habits and pursued aggressive homeopathic therapies along with traditional medicine and radiation.
But the “Total Request Live” host’s breast cancer metastasized into stage 4 and she died eight months after the interview aired.
Lewis is survived by her son, Langston, whom she welcomed in 2011 with Harry Smith — the brother of Will Smith.