Olivia Munn Recalls ‘Shock’ of Seeing Her Body After Having a Double Mastectomy: ‘Looking in the Mirror…Having No Emotion’ (Exclusive)

Munn opens up to PEOPLE about her experience undergoing a double mastectomy after a bilateral cancer diagnosis: 'It was a lot tougher than I expected'

 Olivia Munn thought she’d be shooting a sci-fi film in Germany this time last year.

Instead, she found herself meeting with a flood of oncologists, surgical oncologists, and reconstructive surgeons following the discovery of stage 1 invasive cancer in both of her breasts. Munn's lifesaving diagnosis was due to her ob-gyn’s decision to calculate her lifetime breast cancer risk score during a routine pap smear. Within 30 days, the actress had undergone a lymph node dissection, a nipple delay procedure and a double mastectomy.

“There's so much information and you're making these huge decisions for the rest of your life,” Munn, 43, tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story. “I really tried to be prepared, but the truth is that nothing could prepare me for what I would feel like, what it would look like, how I would handle it emotionally. It was a lot tougher than I expected.”

On May 24, 2023, Munn awoke from her 10-­hour double mastectomy with her chest bandaged, expanders where her breasts had been and—at eye level—a framed photo of her then 1-year-old son Malcolm that her partner, John Mulaney, 41, had placed at her bedside. During surgery, doctors had also discovered a “tangerine-sized” section of ductal carcinoma in situ, a preinvasive cancer, in her right breast. “Hearing that news gave me peace that I’d made the right decision,” says Munn. 

Returning home three days later, she was unable to pick up her baby, but “thankfully I have John there who just did so much and took such great care of me and Malcolm and I just rested,” she recalls.

A week after her surgery, Munn went in for a post-surgical check up. She had opted for expanders over immediate reconstructive surgery to allow her body time to rest and heal. But as her bandages were removed, with them, went all of her defenses.

“I saw myself for the first time and I was in shock. It was incredibly hard,” she says. Despite the doctor's analysis that it looked “fantastic,” the physical embodiment of what she had gone through was numbing. “It was a shock. It was a shock to my system. I had such a hard time, I remember just looking in the mirror with him and just having no emotion, just taking in what he was saying.”

Later, she says, “when I got home, I undressed and looked in the mirror again, and that’s when I just absolutely broke down.” 

Following reconstructive surgery in the fall, Munn has adjusted to the changes in her body. “It's much better, but it's not the same, and that's okay,” says the actress, who also began hormone suppression therapy in November to mitigate future risk of cancer, which has put her into medically induced menopause.

Hot flashes, thinning hair and exhaustion have followed, but she's taking it all in stride. “Because I'm here, and I'm extremely happy that I got the opportunity to fight," she says. "I was given that chance, and I know a lot of people in my situation don't have that as an option. So I'm extremely grateful.”

Munn has made peace with the surgical scars and dents left over from her lymph node surgery (what she calls her “battle wounds") and says that these days she's focused on watching Malcolm, now 2, grow — and raising awareness for other women at risk of breast cancer. After a simple test led to an MRI that saved her life, she says. “All I want is for more women to be able to advocate for themselves.”

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