She was the queen of MTV in the 1990s, a star VJ who rubbed shoulders with scene-makers like Prince, Shaquille O’Neal, and tap-dancing sensation Savion Glover. At her peak, she was so popular — and influential — The New York Times anointed her “the hip-hop generation’s reigning ‘It Girl.’”
In recent years, however, Lewis became a celebrity influencer of a different sort: openly discussing her late-stage breast cancer diagnosis, urging Black women like herself to get tested for the disease, and pleading with them to take the diagnosis (and doctor’s recommendations) seriously.
“I need you to share this with the women in your life who may be as stubborn as I was about mammograms, and I need you to tell them that they have to do it,” she said in an Instagram post from October 2020.
This week, Lewis — a TV personality who helped popularize and define a genre of music — died of the disease she had been fighting for the last five years. She was 52.
“She’s free, and in His heavenly arms,” Lewis’ sister, Lakshmi Emory, wrote late Wednesday in a Facebook post. “Lord, rest her soul.”
More Likely to Die From Breast Cancer
Breast cancer is the deadliest form of the disease for Black women in the U.S. According to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Black women contract it at almost the same rate as white women but are around 40% more likely to die from it, due in large part to not accessing screenings such as mammograms.
Researchers have found evidence that persistent biases in healthcare regularly result in Black women getting ineffective treatment or caregivers ignoring warning symptoms.
Low-income Black women often don’t have access to healthcare providers who use the more accurate digital mammography or breast imaging services that higher-income women can access.
I need you to share this with the women in your life who may be as stubborn as I was about mammograms, and I need you to tell them that they have to do it.
ANANDA LEWIS
“The fear is a deeply rooted one: fear of fighting cancer and fear of the cost of healthcare, without a guarantee of positive outcomes,” says Dr. Faith Ohuoba, an obstetrician and advocate for Black women’s health. “With these factors in the healthcare system, from trusting your provider to trusting the treatment modalities, it is hard to navigate.”
Lewis struggled with similar issues while fighting the disease.
That year, during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Lewis took to Instagram to urge women to get preventative care, including mammograms. And like thousands of Black American women, she added that the cost of cancer treatment, a temporary loss of health insurance, and the upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic had complicated efforts to fight the disease.
Lewis later revealed that she had decided against having a double mastectomy, as doctors had advised her to do when she was first diagnosed, and that she regretted that decision.
“I Felt I Was Doing Well”
Earlier this year, Lewis wrote an op-ed for Essence magazine and shared that she tried several alternative methods to fight the cancer.
“In January 2020, my ultrasounds found that everything was still growing slowly,” Lewis wrote. “I felt I was doing well, and my doctors agreed,” until the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown two months later.”
“That’s what changed everything for me,” she wrote. ”I could no longer get my treatments or the ultrasounds, because everything closed in California in March. By the summer of 2020, I felt the tumor growing again, as I wasn’t able to do anything to stop it.”
Having grown up in Southern California, Lewis’s rise to stardom began at Howard University in Washington, D.C. An activist working with teenagers in a youth leadership program, she auditioned for BET’s “Teen Summit” series and was chosen as the host.
She parlayed that experience into a VJ slot with MTV in 1997, the network’s heyday as a force in the music industry. She ultimately hosted some of the network’s flagship programs, including “Total Request Live” and “Hot Zone,” among others.
Following her MTV career, Lewis worked as a special correspondent for CBS News and made guest appearances on reality-TV programs like “Celebrity Mole-Yucatan.”
Fewer Mammograms, More Late Diagnoses
Despite her career as a celebrity, Lewis fell victim to some of the same issues most Black women face in the doctor’s office.
A December Breast Cancer Research Foundation study identified a strong link between underuse of mammograms in Black women and later-stage breast cancer diagnoses. Those who did not have regular mammograms were three times more likely to be diagnosed with Stage 3 or 4 breast cancer, compared to the more treatable earlier stages of the disease.
Economic factors compound the issue: research indicates women living below the federal poverty line are almost twice as likely to receive a late-stage diagnosis as more affluent women. Moreover, low-income Black women often don’t have access to healthcare providers who use more advanced mammography or breast imaging.
In a statement, BCRF said that improving early-stage diagnoses for Black women is “crucial” to surviving the disease, noting that early detection has a near-100% survival rate for five years. That’s compared to just 24% for late-stage diagnoses.
Those issues tend to dampen trust between Black women and their caregivers. But medical professionals stress the importance of getting regular medical checkups and cancer screenings anyway.
“What is easy to trust is the stories of our fellow sisters sometimes. But even then, that can steer us wrong,” Ohuoba says. “The reality is you need to advocate for yourself. Despite the experience of racism or fear of misdiagnosis, the first step is to ask questions, as many as you need to have a greater understanding of your diagnosis and treatment options, and I also recommend that you seek second opinions.”
