Busta Rhymes made sure the late Ananda Lewis was not forgotten at the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs). As he graced the stage on Sunday night (Sept. 7) to accept the inaugural MTV VMA Rock The Bells Visionary Award, the veteran rapper paid respect to the visionary MTV Host and VJ.
“I want to thank, and I think we all need to acknowledge, the incredible woman that loved us very much when we came to MTV during the 90s,” he said. “An incredible woman that loved me, and she loved us. She loved the culture very much. I miss her very much. The late great incredible royal empress Ananda Lewis.
“I want to big up her mother, her father, her sister Lakshmi, I wanna big up Marvett Britto…Thank y’all so much, man.”
Ananda Lewis passed away in June at age 52 following a battle with breast cancer. Her sister, Lakshmi, confirmed the tragic news on social media.
Lewis’ friend, celebrity.land correspondent Stephanie Elam, revealed Lewis’s final text messages to her. “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,’” she shared. “And then went on to say, “‘I love you, my wonderful lifelong bestie of besties.’”
The journalism and media professional first revealed her breast cancer diagnosis in 2020 when she confessed that she had been “fighting to get cancer out of my body for almost two years.”
In 2024, she detailed her holistic approach to treating the deadly disease and explained, “I decided to keep my tumor and try to work it out of my body a different way.” She added, “Looking back on that, I go, ‘You know what? Maybe I should have,’” about the decision to decline the doctor-recommended double mastectomy.
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