March 29, 2026Updated March 30, 2026, 4:06 p.m. ET
Three years after her breast cancer diagnosis and double mastectomy, Olivia Munn finds ongoing treatment to be “exhausting” – however she’s grateful to be alive.
In an interview with CBS News Sunday Morning launched March 29, the “Your Friends and Neighbors” actor, 45, instructed CBS News Correspondent Tracy Smith she’s “good today,” although “the medicine you have to take afterwards is sometimes so exhausting.”
“With that, I think that I’m so lucky. I don’t look at it like cancer has taken these things from me or it’s unfair that I have to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life,” she continued. “I know that I’m lucky to be here and I am so lucky that I’m in this chaos and I haven’t slept in a few days and I’m exhausted. It’s a true privilege to just be alive in the world.”
Despite a routine mammogram and ultrasound discovering no abnormalities, after the Tyrer-Cuzick Risk Assessment Calculator decided Munn had a 37% lifetime danger of growing breast cancer in 2023, she determined to get an MRI, a second ultrasound and a biopsy. Two months after her clear slate of well being, a biopsy discovered she had Luminal B cancer, an “aggressive, fast moving cancer,” in each breasts.
As half of her treatment, Munn underwent a double mastectomy, a partial hysterectomy (the removing of a uterus) and an oophorectomy (removing of one or each ovaries).
“Now my score is zero,” Munn instructed Smith.
Olivia Munn’s new philosophy after ‘confronted with the likelihood of dying’
Munn, who shares 4-year-old Malcolm and 1½-year-old Méi with husband John Mulaney, in February 2025, stated she has “years to go in my cancer treatment.” In the meantime, she tries to seek out the little joys in life.
In a September Instagram video, Munn shared a timeline of her treatment. The most up-to-date growth was that in August, she started taking Arimidex, which, according to the Mayo Clinic, is a breast cancer treatment that “interferes with the production of estrogen in the body.”
“It’s not the Christmases and the birthdays and the New Years that we remember,” Munn instructed Smith. “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.”
She continued, “Put your phone down when your kid says ‘mommy.’ This is what life is made of: It’s all these tiny little moments. And once you are faced with the possibility of death and not being here, for me, all I wanted were the little moments.”
The Affordable Care Act mandates that almost all insurance coverage corporations should cowl annual screening mammograms for these 40 and older. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends mammogram screenings each different 12 months from ages 40 to 74 for these with an “average” danger for breast cancer.
The National Cancer Institute makes out there a Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Tool, which “allows health professionals to estimate a woman’s risk of developing invasive breast cancer over the next five years and up to age 90 (lifetime risk).”
After pores and skin cancer, breast cancer is the second most typical cancer amongst ladies, based on the National Cancer Institute. The NCI’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program discovered five-year survival rates for breast cancer from 2013 to 2019 have been: 99.3% for localized breast cancer solely present in breast tissue, 86.3% for regional cancer that has unfold to close by lymph nodes or organs and 31% for metastatic cancer, which has unfold to distant areas.
Contributing: Brendan Morrow, USA TODAY
