Olivia Munn Reveals She Was Diagnosed with Breast Cancer in April 2023

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Latest News: Actor Olivia Munn Has Breast Cancer

Three days after attending the 2024 Oscars with her boyfriend, comedian John Mulaney, actor and activist Olivia Munn revealed she has been battling breast cancer since April 2023. Munn shared the news in a March 13 Instagram post that she captioned: “I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I hope by sharing this it will help others find comfort, inspiration and support on their own journey.”

The post details her health journey thus far and includes several pictures and a video of herself in medical settings. “I’m lucky. We caught it with enough time that I had options,” Munn wrote of her Luminal B cancer. “I want the same for any woman who might have to face this one day.” The 43-year-old also explained she has had four surgeries, including a double mastectomy, in the past 10 months.

Munn gave her beau a shout out, as well. She and Mulaney have been dating since 2021 and share a 2-year-old son named Malcolm. “I’m so thankful to John for the nights he spent researching what every operation and medication meant and what side effects and recovery I could expect,” she wrote. “For being there before I went into each surgery and being there when I woke up, always placing framed photos of our little boy Malcolm so it would be the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes.”

Mulaney commented on the post: “Thank you for fighting so hard to be here for us. Malc and I adore you. ❤️”

Who Is Olivia Munn?

Actor Olivia Munn is known for the TV show The Newsroom as well as movies like X-Men: Apocalypse and Magic Mike. Born in Oklahoma, the Asian American spent much of her formative years in Tokyo before returning to the United States as a teenager. Munn dreamed of becoming an actor but began her working years in broadcast news. She transitioned to show biz in the 2000s as a host on Attack of the Show before briefly joining The Daily Show with Jon Stewart as a correspondent. Munn found a wider audience as Sloane Sabbith on the HBO show The Newsroom and in 2012’s Magic Mike. Four years later, Munn took a turn as the telekinetic mutant Psylocke in X-Men: Apocalypse. An outspoken activist as well, Munn is currently in a relationship with comedian John Mulaney, with whom she shares one child.

Quick Facts

FULL NAME: Lisa Olivia Munn
BORN: July 3, 1980
BIRTHPLACE: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
CHILD: Malcolm
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Cancer

Early Life

Lisa Olivia Munn was born on July 3, 1980, in Oklahoma City to an American father and a Vietnamese-raised mother of Chinese descent. When Olivia was 2 years old, her mom, Kim, remarried to an American Air Force officer. Eventually, the family moved to Tokyo.

Those formative years weren’t easy ones for Munn, who had a bad relationship with her stepfather and felt out of place in her new surroundings. But she found comfort in watching videotapes of popular American TV shows and movies and enjoyed some success in the Tokyo modeling industry.

Returning to Oklahoma at age 16, the Asian American again felt out of place at her high school, before bonding with video gamers and tech geeks, who would comprise her future Attack of the Show audience. She went on to the University of Oklahoma, where she majored in journalism and minored in Japanese and dramatic arts.

With her plans to pursue acting out of college nixed by mom, Munn wound up spending a year at the assignments desk of KJRH-TV in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She then became a sideline reporter at Fox Sports Net for college football and women’s basketball games but struggled to find a comfort zone in the role.

Movies

As a Hollywood neophyte, Munn got her start in forgettable flicks like Scarecrow Gone Wild (2004) and The Road to Canyon Lake (2005). Rob Schneider’s Big Stan (2007) provided the opportunity to work alongside legitimate industry talent, as did The Slammin’ Salmon (2009), from the Broken Lizard comedy troupe. Munn followed with minor parts in bigger movies, like 2010’s Date Night and Iron Man 2, before landing a supporting role in I Don’t Know How She Does It (2011), starring Sarah Jessica Parker.

Magic Mike to Ride Along 2

Portraying the girlfriend of Channing Tatum’s titular character in Magic Mike (2012), Munn got the chance to stand out in a movie for being both hot and smart. That same year, she rejoined the Broken Lizard crew for The Babymakers and Freeloaders before returning to the horror genre in Deliver Us From Evil (2014), with Eric Bana.

Following the disappointing heist comedy Mortdecai (2015), Munn played it safe as Detective Maya Cruz in the Ice Cube-Kevin Hart buddy comedy Ride Along 2, which enjoyed a strong box-office showing upon its early 2016 release.

Psylocke in X-Men: Apocalypse

Also in 2016, Munn made her superhero blockbuster debut in X-Men: Apocalypse as Psylocke, a telekinetic mutant who teams up with Oscar Issac’s civilization-destroying crew. Munn, who has a black belt in taekwondo, trained six to seven hours daily to prepare for the intensive martial arts and sword work the role required.

After a part in the ensemble comedy Office Christmas Party (2016), Munn joined another franchise with her voice work for The Lego Ninjago Movie (2017). Poking fun at the movie supervillain archetype, she played Koko, the ex-wife of Justin Theroux’s evil warlord and mother of Dave Franco’s adolescent ninja.

Ocean’s 8 and The Predator

After kicking the 2018 summer season off with a cameo in Ocean’s 8, the all-female spinoff of the popular heist trilogy, Munn co-starred in the fourth installment of The Predator, as a scientist who teams with the military to take out the deadly intergalactic hunters. The actor found herself at the center of controversy just before The Predator premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and opened in theaters in September 2018. News broke that she had alerted the movie’s production studio Twentieth Century Fox that actor Steven Wilder Striegel, who appeared in only one scene in the movie, is a registered sex offender. As a result, Fox cut the scene.

Next up for the actor was a return to comedy with Buddy Games (2019)—written by, directed, and starring Josh Duhamel—and Netflix’s Love Wedding Repeat (2020), in which she starred as the love interest of star Sam Claflin as he attempts to quell hijinks on his sister’s wedding day. Munn then anchored the 2021 drama Violet as the titular character struggling to find herself before returning to action in The Gateway, also from 2021.

TV Shows: The Newsroom, New Girl, and More

Attack of the Show and The Daily Show

Munn began appearing in the surfer drama Beyond the Break in 2006, but it was the start of her run on G4’s Attack of the Show that year that first earned the young actor a devoted following. Co-hosting a program that unabashedly celebrated geek culture, Munn showed she could hold her own among its video game enthusiasts and comic book fanboys, while also giving its largely teen and young adult male audience some extra fantasy fuel with her willingness to dress up as Princess Leia, Wonder Woman, and other fictional sirens. During this time, she also earned a recurring role on the college-centered show Greek and appeared in other noted programs like Chuck.

In 2010, nearing the end of her Attack of the Show tenure, Munn began contributing to the popular news satire The Daily Show with Jon Stewart as its “Senior Asian Correspondent.” While short-lived, the role provided an opportunity to showcase her wit and charm to a larger, influential audience.

A chance at sitcom stardom came in early 2011 with Perfect Couples, though the show was off the air by the end of the season.

The Newsroom

Making a sharp professional turn, Munn left behind the TV host antics and swimsuit shoots in 2012 for the rapid-fire banter and highbrow ruminations of HBO’s The Newsroom, starring Jeff Daniels who won an Emmy for his performance as Will McAvoy. As financial analyst Sloan Sabbith, she displayed a wonky expertise of economics to go with a social awkwardness and withering bluntness, earning more screen time by the drama’s third and final season.

The role wasn’t completely foreign to Munn, who drew from her own early experiences in journalism to present a fully fleshed-out character. “It wasn’t just imitating Diane Sawyer and Anderson Cooper,” she said. “I knew how the sausage got made, so I could bring that knowledge to the table.”

New Girl and Miles from Tomorrowland

Munn subsequently surfaced in other programs amid her work on The Newsroom, including a three-episode arc as Nick’s girlfriend on New Girl. Her star power established, Munn later appeared on the reality TV competitions Project Runway and America’s Got Talent as a guest judge and was tapped to host the Critics’ Choice Awards in early 2018.

By that time, Munn had nearly wrapped her voice acting role as Phoebe Callisto on the Disney Junior show Miles from Tomorrowland, which had kicked off in 2015. The actor was largely featured on the show’s first two seasons but made a final contribution in the series finale. Also in 2018, the actor joined the cast of History’s Navy SEAL drama Six. She played high-ranking CIA operative Gina Cline in all 10 episodes of Season 2.

Munn’s most recent TV roles include on the limited series The Rook (2019) and the Marvel animated show Hit-Monkey, which has a second season in the works. She also made appearances on Tales of the Walking Dead and Inside Amy Schumer in 2022.

Relationship with John Mulaney and Son

Munn has been in a relationship with comedian John Mulaney since 2021. That September, Mulaney confirmed that the couple was expecting their first child together, and Munn subsequently shared her pregnancy journey in various media interviews. The stars welcomed a son named Malcolm in November 2021.

Upon announcing her breast cancer diagnosis in March 2024, Munn gave her boyfriend props for his support during her health journey. “I’m so thankful to John for the nights he spent researching what every operation and medication meant and what side effects and recovery I could expect,” she wrote in an Instagram post. “For being there before I went into each surgery and being there when I woke up, always placing framed photos of our little boy Malcolm so it would be the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes.”

Before her relationship with Mulaney, Munn was dating NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers for more than two years. They began a relationship in late 2014 before calling it quits in April 2017. Munn also dated actor Joel Kinnaman for two years and was linked to other Hollywood stars like Chris Pine and Matthew Morrison.

Breast Cancer Diagnosis

In March 2024, Munn shared she has Luminal B cancer in both her breasts. The diagnosis, which occurred in April 2023, came as a surprise as she had a normal mammogram months earlier and genetic testing for cancer genes that was conducted in February 2023 came back negative. “I wouldn’t have found my cancer for another year—at my next scheduled mammogram—except that my OBGYN, Dr. Thaïs Aliabadi, decided to calculate my Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Score,” Munn wrote in her announcement on Instagram. “The fact that she did saved my life.”

A month after a biopsy confirmed the cancer, Munn had a double mastectomy. That was part of the four surgeries she had within a 10-month timespan. She has been undergoing treatment at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles and Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California.

The actor explained she waited to disclose the news because “I needed to catch my breath and get through some of the hardest parts before sharing.” She also encouraged other women to ask their doctors to calculate their own Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Scores and seek additional screenings as needed.

Activism

In 2010, Munn debuted her first book, Suck it, Wonder Woman!: The Misadventures of a Hollywood Geek. Laced with her irreverent and sometimes searing humor, the memoir recalled her dealings with culture shock in both Tokyo and Oklahoma, as well as wild tales of her climb up the Hollywood ladder. It also touched on an ugly aspect of the business that was still mostly under wraps at the time: her experience with an unnamed director who masturbated in front of her.

In November 2017, with that issue now at the forefront of Hollywood, Munn joined five other women actors in accusing Brett Ratner of sexual assault, confirming that he was the unnamed director in her book. “I shouldn’t have to be completely broken, battered, and devalued in order to prove that he crossed a line,” she said. Munn also penned an essay for Entertainment Weekly on the subject, arguing that Hollywood needed to change its culture of protecting and enabling abusive men like Ratner and producer Harvey Weinstein.

Munn became part of the Time’s Up Initiative, a group of prominent actors, producers, and other Hollywood insiders who set up a legal fund for harassment victims and sought to pressure companies and Congress to foster equal rights in the workplace. For her efforts, in 2018, she was honored at the United Nations Foundation’s Girl Hero Awards for her activism and named the inaugural Voice for Justice Award winner by the University of Oklahoma’s Women’s and Gender Studies Board.

After speaking at the 2018 Women’s March in Los Angeles, the activist lobbied the United Nations General Assembly to adopt a survivor rights resolution at the Survivor Town Hall held in 2019. A survivors’ bill of rights eventually passed in 2022.

In 2021, the actor began using her platform for another cause close to her heart: Stop Asian Hate. “Over the past few days I’ve found myself at a loss for words at the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes. The racist, verbal and physical assaults have left my community fearful to step outside,” Munn wrote in an Instagram post describing herself as a “proud Asian American.” In addition to highlighting the issue and opportunities for followers to get involved on her social media, she joined The Asian American Fund at the White House on the day President Joe Biden signed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act into law and has spoken out about the issue in the press.

Production and Investing

Like other actors, Munn has moved into the development side of the business by entering into a production agreement with CBS TV Studios. Among her first deals was the sale of a series about a pioneering female sports broadcaster who attempts to forge ahead in her career amid rampant sexism and the stricter social conventions of the 1970s.

The actor also isn’t afraid to use her hard-earned money to back burgeoning businesses. She was among the early investors in the ridesharing service Uber and also invested in Chef’s Cut Real Jerky after sampling and realizing it “tasted like steak in a bag.”

Quotes

• You do the best with the opportunities that are given to you. Sometimes, that means you do get stuck in that image, in that world, in that box, and that’s something that you just have to go, “Okay, I hope I don’t.” But you need the audience to allow you to get out of that. You have to go do it, but the audience has to respond to you.

• I found it very hard to find my place. That’s been true all my life. When you travel around so much, you have to keep reinventing yourself. And that toughens you up, gives you more tools to cope in life.

• At the end of the day, if it’s entertaining, it’s entertaining—but entertaining doesn’t mean being soft.

• If they want to take my career, that’s okay, because my self worth is something so much bigger.
  

• The things that are most valuable to me—my family, friends, health, education, self-worth—can’t be taken away. Once you have that, you realize there’s nothing to fear.
  

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