Olivia Munn Battled Postpartum Anxiety for Almost a Year After Son's Birth: 'Tunnel of Darkness' (Exclusive)
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"I was not prepared for the kind of postpartum that I had," Munn tells PEOPLE in this week's cover story
Breast cancer came as a shock to Olivia Munn, who had a clear mammogram just three months prior to her diagnosis. But the year before that, postpartum struggles had almost swallowed the new mom.
“Postpartum is really difficult,” Munn tells PEOPLE in this week's cover story. After welcoming her son Malcolm, now 2, with comedian John Mulaney in November 2021, “I was not prepared for the kind of postpartum that I had. I had heard about postpartum depression. I had never heard about postpartum anxiety.”
She describes her diagnosis of luminal B—a fast-moving, aggressive cancer—in both breasts, as a one-two punch at that point in her life. “On a scale of 1 to 10, I would put my postpartum anxiety at 100,” says Munn, 43.
“I went through something challenging this past year, but I don’t think it compares to what I went through postpartum.”
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Olivia Munn/Instagram
Olivia Munn with hew newborn son MalcolmPostpartum anxiety is a condition marked by severe stress and worry, shortness of breath, heart palpitations and loss of sleep, among other things, that affects up to 21% of women after childbirth.
For Munn, the unrelenting anxiety attacks began about a month after Malcolm’s birth.
“I woke up out of nowhere. It’s 4 a.m., my eyes pop open, and I [feel] like I can’t breathe. My chest is tight, and it stays like that all day long,” recalls Munn. “And it was like that every day for almost a year. There would be days where I’d be clenching John’s arm and walking from room to room.”
Munn says she did not have any intrusive self-harm thoughts or negative feelings toward her baby but was “in such a tunnel of anxiety and darkness” that she felt incapable of considering medication. “Eventually it just lifted,” she says.
Munn also struggled with bounce-back expectations, saying she gained 60 pounds during her pregnancy. “The weight didn't just come off of me, and I took some more time to start to work out and to eat in a more healthy way after my postpartum lifted,” she says. She had finally started feeling like herself just before the cancer diagnosis. “I really didn’t have a moment to catch my breath.”
At a routine pap smear in March 2023, Munn’s OB-GYN, Dr. Thaïs Aliabadi, calculated her breast cancer risk assessment score using the TyrerCuzick test, a free tool available online. A lifetime risk score of 20 percent or higher suggests high risk, signaling that additional screening beyond a standard mammogram is likely necessary. Munn’s score was an alarming 37.3 percent. The subsequent MRI her doctor ordered, which was followed by biopsies, found stage 1 invasive cancer in both breasts.
Within 30 days Munn underwent a lymph node dissection, a nipple delay procedure and a 10-hour double mastectomy. As she healed, those who loved her rallied around the actress. “I was so lucky to have a support system, especially John,” says Munn, who had reconstructive surgery early last fall after giving herself the summer to recover.
“I haven't really felt like I've been back in the body that I knew before. But that's okay for me,” she tells PEOPLE. “I feel grateful that I was given the opportunity to fight.”
“If I have a few scars and dents and bathing suits look different on me now, that's okay,” she adds. “I'm proud of myself for what I went through. It's a very profound journey to find out how much strength and resilience I have. It's more than I thought I had.”
Munn is currently in medically induced menopause due to hormone suppression therapy she started in November to mitigate the future risk of cancer. Hot flashes, hair thinning and exhaustion have come with it.
After facing cancer, Munn has also learned what she can do without. “I'm someone who in the past typically holds onto a lot of regret. And I don't really forgive myself a lot for even sometimes the smallest infractions,” she says. But after what she's experienced in the last year, “I forgave myself. I let go of disappointments. I just let it all go because I couldn't bear any more weight on me.”
Today she's found peace on the other side of it. “I had to let that baggage go so that I could fight this fight," she says. "And because I've let that all go, I am so much happier.”
For more of Munn's exclusive interview, pick up this week's issue on PEOPLE on newsstands Friday.
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