Olivia Munn Got Real About Having A Double Mastectomy After Her Breast Cancer Diagnosis
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Olivia Munn is getting real about her journey battling breast cancer — and it sounds like it hasn't been easy.
Last month, the actor revealed that she was diagnosed in 2023 and has since underwent four surgeries across the last 10 months — including a double mastectomy.
"I went from feeling completely fine one day, to waking up in a hospital bed after a 10-hour surgery the next," she said in an Instagram post revealing her diagnosis. "I'm lucky. We caught it with enough time that I had options."
In a new interview with People, the actor reveals how it felt to receive the news from her doctor. “I was not someone who obsessed over death or was afraid of it in any way,” she said, explaining that “having a little baby at home made everything much more terrifying.”
Olivia shares one child, Malcolm, with partner and comedian John Mulaney.
“You realize cancer doesn’t care who you are; it doesn’t care if you have a baby or if you don’t have time. It comes at you, and you have no choice but to face it head-on.”
Olivia revealed that, within 30 days, she underwent a double mastectomy, a lymph node dissection, and a nipple delay procedure.
Melbourne Breast Cancer Surgery describes a nipple delay procedure as "intended to create new circulatory connections from the breast skin to the nipple/areolar complex, and involves dividing the blood vessels and other breast tissue beneath the nipple, so that the nipple is no longer dependent on the underlying breast tissue for its blood supply."
Olivia also explained that the nipple delay procedure was optional, but she's "glad" she opted for it "to give myself the best shot of keeping the parts of me that I can keep.”
“I had amazing doctors, but it was still a negotiation sometimes on what we are doing," she explained.
Olivia also revealed that her diagnosis was particularly shocking since she previously "did all the tests" and had an annual mammogram three months previous that came back all clear. “I was walking around thinking that I had no breast cancer,” she said.
“I really tried to be prepared," she said later in the profile, "but the truth is that nothing could prepare me for what I would feel like, what it would look like, and how I would handle it emotionally."
"It was a lot tougher than I expected.”
Read the entire profile here.
