Former Bachelorette star Katie Thurston has opened up about how Ananda Lewis’s death impacted her own experience with breast cancer.
Lewis, the former MTV video jockey and talk show host, died last week aged 52, eight months after learning her breast cancer had spread and progressed to stage four.
Thurston was first diagnosed with breast cancer in mid-February. Initially, her condition was classified as stage three, but a few weeks later — after relocating to New York and consulting a new medical team — she received a revised diagnosis of stage four breast cancer that had metastasized to her liver
On Saturday, Thurston shared her thoughts on her Instagram channel, Boobie Broadcast, reflecting on Lewis’s passing.
“Currently more accepting about my diagnosis. Although the passing of fellow sister Ananda Lewis had me spiraling for a day,” she wrote. “I’ve mostly kept busy and my mind distracted which has helped A TON.”
Earlier this month, Thurston revealed she was losing her memory amid her cancer treatment.
“My hair is coming out in an unnatural amount of clumps,” Thurston said. “Working on that.”
The former reality television star recalled “going through customs” at the airport with her husband, Jeff Arcuri, when she suddenly couldn’t remember where she was traveling from.
“[They asked], ‘Where are you coming from?’ And I looked at them and I was like, ‘I don’t remember. I don’t remember,’” she said. “Jeff and I got in a — not an argument, but you know, a little disagreement. I was like, ‘This has happened before,’ and he’s like, ‘When?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know, but I know it has.’”
“Sometimes I’m like, stop feeling bad for yourself, but then other times I’m like, no, you’re allowed to feel bad for yourself. Cancer sucks,” the former reality star said.
Lewis revealed her breast cancer diagnosis in 2020. During a round-table discussion on CNN in 2024, she admitted her doctors recommended she receive a double mastectomy after her diagnosis, but she refused.
“My plan at first was to get out excessive toxins in my body. I felt like my body is intelligent, I know that to be true. Our bodies are brilliantly made,” she told the hosts.
“I decided to keep my tumor and try to work it out of my body a different way. Looking back on that, I go, ‘You know what? Maybe I should have.’”
She added of her decision not to undergo surgery: “My quality of life was very important to me… I want to want to be here. So I had to do it a certain way, for me.”
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