Actress Olivia Munn said Wednesday that she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer last year and soon after underwent a double mastectomy as part of her treatment.
Munn, 43, who has starred in dozens of movies and TV shows, including the HBO series “The Newsroom,” wrote in a lengthy social media post that she tried to be proactive about her health.
In February 2023, shortly after the routine mammogram, Munn took a powerful genetic test that checked for 90 cancer genes. He said the test came back negative for all of them, including BRCA, the most well-known breast cancer gene. Her sister was also negative at the same time.
“We called each other and listened loudly,” Munn wrote.
Two months later, Munn learned she had luminal B, a type of breast cancer. A month later, she had a double mastectomy.
“In the past ten months, I’ve had four surgeries, spent so many days in bed that I can’t even count, and learned more about cancer, cancer, treatment, and hormones than I could have ever imagined,” she wrote. Surprisingly, I’ve only cried twice. I guess I didn’t feel like there was time to cry.”
Munn’s post was largely a call to women to ask their doctors to calculate their breast cancer risk assessment score. Having her obstetrician-gynecologist do it helped identify Munn’s cancer early.
“The fact that it actually saved my life,” Munn wrote.
Risk assessment includes factors such as family history of breast cancer and age. Munn said in her post that having her first child over the age of 30 was a factor. Munn has been in a relationship with comedian John Mulaney since 2021 and they have a 2-year-old son together, Malcolm.
The results of Munn’s risk assessment prompted her doctor to send her for an MRI, which led to an ultrasound. This led to a biopsy which revealed the cancer.
In her post, Moon thanked her doctors as well as her friends and family. He thanked Mulaney for researching all of her procedures and medications for information about side effects and recovery.
Over the past year, Munn’s social media has shown many happy moments as well as many glamorous ones, including family photos on the beach and more of Munn in designer looks. This weekend she shared images of herself wearing a metallic Fendi dress to the Academy Awards, where Mulaney presented an award.
“I tend to let people see me when I have energy, when I can get dressed and get out of the house, when I can take my little boy to the park,” she wrote.
“I’ve kept the diagnosis and the worry and the recovery and the pain medicine and the paper robes private. I needed to catch my breath and get through some of the rougher spots before I could share it.”
