<\/p>\n
At first, Olivia Munn\u2019s breast cancer diagnosis<\/a> didn\u2019t feel real.<\/p>\n In fact, in a weird way, it felt familiar. \u201cI\u2019d seen this in movies,\u201d Munn told Hoda Kotb on the Joy 101 podcast<\/a> on June 10. \u201cI was like, oh, I\u2019ve seen this when someone sits down and they go, \u2018It\u2019s cancer.\u2019 You watch it from a third-person perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n More from SheKnows<\/strong><\/p>\n Then, all of a sudden, Munn said she realized this was happening to her, not a character on screen. \u201cIt was very surreal,\u201d she said. \u201cAs it\u2019s happening, it feels like I\u2019m in a movie. But the same time, my brain is like, \u2018Be here, right now.\u201d<\/p>\n Munn was diagnosed with breast cancer in March 2023, at age 42, after her OB-GYN calculated her Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Score<\/a> and recommended she have additional screening. The actress had just welcomed her first child, Malcolm, in 2021, and had been planning her second with now-husband John Mulaney when she got the diagnosis.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a huge marker,\u201d Munn said, reflecting on that moment. \u201cWhen somebody goes back and tells the story of your life, you think it\u2019s going to be one way, and all of a sudden, there\u2019s a fork in the road.\u201d<\/p>\n After she got through the initial out-of-body moment, Munn remembers getting \u201creally focused,\u201d a mindset she would stay in throughout treatment. She learned she had Luminal B cancer, and aggressive and fast-moving breast cancer, which they later found to be in both breasts.<\/p>\n From there, Munn says, \u201cit was off to the races.\u201d She had a double mastectomy just 30 days later.<\/p>\n Through the whole ordeal, she says, she only cried twice: right before the double mastectomy, and a week after, when she saw herself with tissue expanders \u2014 empty breast implants not yet filled with liquid or air. (\u201cI didn\u2019t recognize myself,\u201d she explained previously on the SheMD<\/a> podcast.)<\/p>\n Munn also admits she was afraid of freezing her eggs amidst her diagnosis, as the hormones taken during the process can further stimulate some types of cancer. (Per Breastcancer.org<\/a>, fertility doctors who specialize in working with cancer patients can customize the medication regimen to protect the body from high estrogen levels, while still stimulating the ovaries to produce eggs.)<\/p>\n For Munn, though, it was about an acceptance of fear and a decision to not let it run her life. \u201cI realized then that I think I\u2019ll be afraid for the rest of my life,\u201d she explained. With cancer, \u201cwe always have to look over our shoulder\u201d in case of a recurrence. \u201cI had decided that I can\u2019t choose where the fear wants to be and wants to sit\u2026 You might be sitting in the passenger side, you might be sitting in the back, but it\u2019s going to be in the car of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n Munn was set on having a girl, no matter how many rounds it took \u2014 and, as her doctor told her, \u201cthe numbers aren\u2019t on our side.\u201d But then \u201cthe dream\u201d happened: two healthy embryos developed after her first egg retrieval, and both were baby girls. \u201cMy daughter M\u00e9i M\u00e9i\u2019 is one of those two,\u201d Munn said. She and Mulaney welcomed M\u00e8i June<\/a> in September 2024 via surrogate.<\/p>\n It was quite a journey, from that surreal moment of diagnosis to a double mastectomy to today, with Munn telling Kotb about an idyllic home life<\/a> with her husband and two kids. And, Munn says, she found a new calling along the way: advocating for women to calculate their Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Score, the test that resulted in her early diagnosis and successful treatment.<\/p>\n \u201cI had no idea when I talked about it, that it would be so far- reaching and help so many people, and but that was my goal,\u201d Munn said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I wanted\u2026 [I thought] if I do it right, maybe I could really make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n Best of SheKnows<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for SheKnows’ Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At first, Olivia Munn\u2019s breast cancer diagnosis didn\u2019t feel real. In fact, in a weird way, it felt familiar. \u201cI\u2019d seen this in movies,\u201d Munn told Hoda Kotb on the Joy 101 podcast on June 10. \u201cI was like, oh, I\u2019ve seen this when someone sits down and they go, \u2018It\u2019s cancer.\u2019 You watch it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2455537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[482658,52005,343409,349957,348510,314708,239417],"class_list":["post-2455536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-assessment-score","tag-breast-cancer","tag-double-mastectomy","tag-hoda-kotb","tag-john-mulaney","tag-olivia-munn","tag-sheknows"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Olivia-Munn-Describes-Surreal-Out-of-Body-Moment-of-Breast-Cancer-Diagnosis.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2455536"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2455538,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455536\/revisions\/2455538"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2455537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2455536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2455536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2455536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}