Ananda Lewis Biography
Ananda Lewis is an American television personality, model and social activist. She was an MTV veejay from the late 1990s until 2001 when she left the network to host her own broadcast syndicated television talk show, The Ananda Lewis Show. She is of African American and Native American descent, specifically of the Creek and Blackfoot tribes.
Ananda Lewis Net Worth | Ananda Lewis Salary
Model and social activist she hasn’t freed the actual figure of her net worth or career income to the public or media. A lifelong fixture on television, she has hosted and presented numerous television shows and done various charitable works.
Ananda Lewis Sister
She has a sister Lakshmi Lewis, who is a physician. They were raised together by their grandmother. She credited her sister for providing her with a positive, supportive environment.
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Ananda Lewis Parents
She was born to Yvonne Lewis, Stanley Lewis. Her mother worked as an account manager for Pacific Bell and her father as a computer-animation specialist. Her parents divorced when she was two years old, and her mother moved with her daughters to San Diego, California, to be near her own mother. Her mother took an extended trip to Europe to escape the pain of her failed marriage, leaving her and her sister with their grandmother. She felt abandoned during the absence of her mother.
Ananda Lewis Age
She was born March 21, 1973, in Los Angeles, CA. She is a member of the famous TV Show Host list. The TV personality who worked as a veejay for MTV before getting her own talk show.
Ananda Lewis Early Life
She would struggle with a speech impediment, stuttering until she was eight years old. In grade school she earned a reputation for outspokenness; her comments provoked her teachers’ ire or, less often, their amusement. She performed a dance routine, which she had choreographed herself, to Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney’s ballad “Ebony and Ivory.”
She won and attracted the attention of a talent agent and began working in local theater productions and on television. She was later enrolled at the San Diego School of Creative and Performance Arts (SCPA), a public magnet school, where she remained for nine years. During college, she had volunteered as a mentor with the group Youth at Risk and at the Youth Leadership Institute. She was considering attending graduate school to pursue a master’s degree in education when she learned that auditions were going to be held for the job of on-screen host of BET’s Teen Summit.
Ananda Lewis Career | Ananda Lewis Mtv
Her audition would be a success and she became the host of Teen Summit. She is known for having the courage to openly discuss taboo subjects without flinching. Her executives knew that this kind of gumption was the right stuff for a live show host,” In 1996, on an installment of the show entitled “It Takes a Village,” Lewis interviewed then-First Lady Hillary Clinton, whose book with that title had been published earlier in the year.
Also in 1996 Teen Summit was nominated for a CableACE Award, and the next year the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) presented Lewis with an Image Award for her work on Black Entertainment Television (BET).
She decided to leave MTV in order to start her own talk show. She debuted on September 10, 2001, after much advance press in which Lewis was compared to Oprah Winfrey, the wildly popular talk-show host long considered to be one of the most powerful women of African American descent in television.
Her series, which was syndicated by King World Productions, targeted women between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four by addressing such issues as domestic violence and breast cancer; it was billed as an alternative to the sensationalism and provocative offerings of Jerry Springer and Ricki Lake, whose talk shows were then dominating daytime ratings
She has interviewed Paris Hilton, Dylan Ryder, Don Cheadle and Ryan Phillippe (two of the stars of Paul Haggis’s ensemble film Crash), and actress Dyan Cannon. Lewis herself has made guest appearances on several sitcoms.
Ananda Lewis Husband | Who Is Ananda Lewis Married To | Ananda Lewis And Harry Smith
She married Harry Smith who is a former senior officer in the Australian Army, seeing service during the Malayan Emergency and the Vietnam War. He was Officer Commanding of D Company, 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment during the Battle of Long Tan on 18 August 1966. The family is blessed with one child.
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Ananda Lewis 2018
Known for her outspokenness and captivating personality, TV host and carpenter extraordinaire Ananda Lewis has been a powerful voice and advocate for teenagers and women for decades. A familiar face on television from the mid-90s through 2004, Lewis was the host of some of TV’s most popular shows, including BET’s “Teen Summit,” and MTV’s “TRL” and “Hot Zone.” In 1997, she won the NAACP Image Award for an interview she did with Hillary Clinton. Eventually, she even went on to host her own daytime talk show, “The Ananda Lewis Show.”
Then, without warning, Lewis disappeared from the spotlight — leaving many wondering where the popular television host disappeared to.
But she hasn’t gone anywhere: These days, Lewis is in the construction business; tearing down walls, painting, and renovating homes in her new career as a carpenter. “For me, this is the only work I’ll ever do in my life,” Lewis says. And prior to her TV career, she was actually on a very different path. Lewis grew up in San Diego; and after her parents divorced when she was 2 years old, she was raised by her mother and grandmother, along with an aunt that lived in Los Angeles. “I had this tribe of very powerful women,” she says.
Lewis then majored in history at Howard University and wanted to become a teacher. But thanks to her students’ encouragement, she ended up auditioning for “Teen Summit,” which set her on the fast track to fame. The powerhouse recently sat down with Shondaland to talk about finding and following her passion — and why she traded in a microphone for a hard hat and tool belt.
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