Olivia Munn is living proof: It matters when celebrities speak out about their health

Olivia Munn has seen this film before. You know the scene, when a person has their world turned upside down after learning they have “the big C.” Only this time, the 44-year-old actress wasn’t reading it in a script.

This became Munn’s reality when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2023. Thanks to a free risk assessment, her story has a happy ending.

On Monday night, Munn was honored with the Courage Award at An Unforgettable Evening, an annual gala benefiting the Women’s Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) in Beverly Hills. The Your Friends & Neighbors star went public with her bilateral breast cancer diagnosis in March 2024, revealing she had privately undergone four surgeries in 10 months, including a double mastectomy. Sharing her story for the world to dissect wasn’t easy, but Munn says it was worth it.

“Having so many women come up to me on the street who’ve gone through breast cancer — daughters, sisters, people who aren’t going through it themselves but are connected to it so closely has [been rewarding],” Munn told Yahoo Entertainment at the event.

“Every time that someone comes up to me, there is this healing process that happens between both of us because it really is a sisterhood,” she continued. “We’re there rooting each other on and lifting each other up and getting each other through this.”

Over the past year, Munn, known for The Newsroom and The Daily Show, where she was a correspondent, suddenly had a new ID tag on her resume: breast cancer awareness advocate. She was recently recognized as one of Time magazine’s “Women of the Year” for 2025. Her influence actually is measurable, WCRF co-founder and gala chair Jamie Tisch told me at the event.

“What Olivia has done — her impact on awareness and being outspoken about her breast cancer and her journey — has been so important for so many women. When she spoke about using the breast cancer risk assessment tool, there was a 4,000% increase in women taking that,” Tisch explained.

That increase was just in the first week of Munn announcing her diagnosis, by the way. (There are two free online tools here and here to assess your own risk.)

“People are being diagnosed younger, which is kind of a good news thing because we’re catching it,” Tisch continued. “She really did impact people.”

Munn accepted the honor inside the ballroom at the Beverly Hilton hotel with husband, John Mulaney, and her team of doctors in attendance.

“Courage in those first days after my breast cancer diagnosis meant letting myself be afraid. Being afraid and walking into the void … a void of inexperience, a void of information, a void of uncertainty. The first step I had to take was to walk out of [my doctor’s] office and call my husband,” Munn recalled.

“When the time came for me to say the words, “it was cancer,” I couldn’t get the words out. It was caught in my throat. I’ve also seen that in movies. I think it was the disbelief that my life had taken this turn, or the fear of the worst happening, or knowing that these words would break my husband’s heart, or all of the above,” she continued. “As I struggled to say these words, John just said, ‘Come home.’”

Munn and Mulaney, who hosts his own talk show, share son, Malcolm, 3, and 7-month-old daughter, Méi, whom they welcomed via surrogate.

“When I got home, my son was playing in the yard, he was just over 1 years old at that moment. I went over and I hugged him so hard that he said, ‘Mama, too much.’ And then I turned to John, and right then we started planning my way out of this thing,” she said.

Today Munn is cancer-free. She told the crowd in attendance she’s undergoing endocrine (or hormone) therapy.

As for the actress’s happy ending? She’s fighting every day for hers — and thousands like her — to have awareness and access to the tools they need to take control of their health.