Olivia Munn Honored on Capitol Hill for Her Breast Cancer Advocacy

Olivia Munn is being recognized for her work as a breast cancer advocate.

On Sept. 10, the Your Friends & Neighbors actress, 45, was honored with the Excellence in Cancer Awareness Award at the 32nd Annual Action for Cancer Awareness Awards luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. The luncheon was hosted by Prevent Cancer Foundation’s Congressional Families Program.

The theme of this year’s event was “Shining a Light on Prevention.” Along with Munn, Florida’s Whole Family Health Center and congressional spouses Wayne Kye (married to New York Representative Grace Meng) and Marcia S. Latta (married to Ohio Representative Bob Latta) were honored.

Munn shared photos from the luncheon in an Instagram post on Sept. 29, writing in the caption that she was “incredibly humbled” to have received the honor.

“I’m grateful that there are many people who understand the importance of early detection as well as the crucial research that’s needed to help find a cure for so many people battling cancer,” she wrote.

Munn wrote that her breast cancer — which she was diagnosed with in 2023 after her ob-gyn calculated she was high-risk using the free online Tyrer-Cuzick risk assessment tool — is “aggressive and fast-moving.”

She added that her mom Kim’s breast cancer “is HER2-positive which was considered a ‘death sentence’ until the development of targeted therapies like Herceptin in the late 1990s which was discovered solely because of dedicated researchers.”

Munn first revealed her mom’s breast cancer diagnosis in July. At the time, Munn wrote on her Instagram that her mom had received a score of 26.2% from the Tyrer­-Cuzick breast cancer risk assessment, which says that if a person scores 20% or higher they are high risk.

Munn’s mom was diagnosed after an MRI confirmed her breast cancer, and she went through 12 rounds of chemo and Herceptin treatments. Hercaptin treatments work by blocking the body’s signals that tell cancer cells to grow and multiply.

“We now need every gynecologist to incorporate the lifetime risk rest into their care plan,” Munn wrote at the time. “All of these things matter, you can’t leave one off. My mom wanted me to tell you that she hopes by sharing her story it will help save someone’s life.”

Munn concluded her Sept. 29 Instagram post shouting out her fellow honorees. She also thanked Dr. Janine Bera, who presented her with the award, Prevent Cancer Foundation’s Lisa McGovern and “everyone who came out to show their support.”