Olivia Munn is used to being in front of a camera, but lately she has been talking about something far more personal.
In April 2023, Munn learned she had Stage 1 breast cancer after taking the Lifetime Risk Assessment test, a free online Q&A that takes minutes and gives a score estimating a person’s lifetime risk of developing breast cancer. Anything above 20 percent is considered high risk. Munn said her score was 37.3 percent.
“No symptoms. And I had a clear mammogram and a clear ultrasound,” Munn told “CBS Sunday Morning.”
After her diagnosis, Munn underwent a double mastectomy, an ovariectomy and a partial hysterectomy. She said her score is now zero.
She did not keep that experience private. Munn posted online about her cancer and began urging women to take the risk assessment test. Since she started sharing her story, the number of women taking the test has increased by 4,000 percent.
“Knowing that it’s really changed so many people’s lives. It’s been the most amazing thing. There’s no way I could have ever predicted it,” she said.
Munn’s life also changed in other ways during that period. She started dating comedian John Mulaney in 2021, and the pair married in 2024. Munn said he stayed by her side throughout her breast cancer treatment.
“There’s no better person in the world to me than my husband. He is, I mean, you’ve met him. He wanted to come to every single doctor’s appointment. He had his little notebook. You know? And he’s got his notebook that he writes all of his ideas for jokes and anything that comes to him through the day,” Munn said.
She said Mulaney used that notebook for more than comedy during her treatment, writing down notes about cancer and hormone therapy. Munn also said his sense of humor helped.
“You know, having the humor to go through it and having someone who’s so funny, it really, it just lightens everything,” she said.
Munn is also a mother of two. She and Mulaney have a son, Malcolm, who is 4, and a daughter, Mei Mei, who will be 2 in the fall. She said parenthood sharpened her sense of how suddenly life can shift.
“I say it’s not the Christmases and the birthdays and the New Year’s that we remember. Like, life happens on a Tuesday. Like, it just happens. And you cannot expect it. And so every day, you should just be so present and grateful,” Munn said, reminding parents to enjoy all the “tiny, little moments” with their children.
She added, “And once you are faced with the possibility of death and not being here, it’s, for me, all I wanted were the little moments.”
Munn also said she now sees her life through a different lens. She said she feels lucky, even in hard moments, and does not think of cancer only in terms of what it took from her.
“I’m so lucky that I’m in this chaos, and that I haven’t slept in a few days, and that I’m exhausted. It’s a true privilege to just be alive in the world,” Munn said to CBS News.
Munn is now back at work, filming her role as a devious divorcee in the Apple TV+ series “Your Friends and Neighbors,” which returns for its second season on Friday, April 3, 2026.
