Olivia Munn is getting candid about the realities of postpartum life.
The 44-year-old actress opened up about her first pregnancy, the arrival of her daughter via surrogate, and fighting for her life against breast cancer in a new interview.
Over ten months, Munn had five surgeries while undergoing cancer treatment. However, she was struggling with her health prior to her diagnosis
Munn said her postpartum anxiety began about a month after the November 2021 birth of her son, Malcolm, now 3.
“My eyes pop open at 4 a.m. I’m gasping for air. I get the tightness in my chest, and it’s like that all day long,” Munn told Self. “It was like when you watch a horror movie—the worst, scariest horror movie you can think of—that’s how my body felt.”
“I would have to sometimes hold John’s arm from room to room. It was physical, almost as if I had sprained my knee,” she continued, adding that it “felt like the end of the world.”
The Your Friends & Neighbors star recalled feeling like she was “falling off a cliff” but not telling anyone. “It was more difficult than going through cancer,” she said.
Munn believes the anxiety was spurred by her inability to produce breast milk.
“When you stop breastfeeding immediately, your hormones drop, and postpartum can come in like a tornado. And I didn’t clock any of that and I didn’t tell anybody about that,” she said.
Then came the 2023 breast cancer diagnosis, which Munn publicly shared in March 2024. Her treatment involved a double mastectomy, partial hysterectomy, and oophorectomy. The “aggressive” approach, as she described it to Self, sent her into surgical menopause. She remains on medication that suppresses estrogen and other hormones to stop or slow cancer cell growth.
“I felt like I had one hand on a door with a monster trying to break in, and I was just holding it there the whole time…. Just at any second, it’s going to burst through,” Munn said. Eventually, Munn confided in her husband, John Mulaney, and asked for help. “We tried two more medications and now we’re on one that thankfully is working,” Munn said.
After her diagnosis, Munn found a surrogate to carry her daughter, Méi, now 6 months.
“It was devastating for me not to be able to carry [Méi]. I loved carrying my son,” Munn said. “It makes me emotional—it’s your baby, and the baby is somewhere else in the world,” she said of surrogacy.
