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Olivia Munn didn't let a terrifying health issue keep her from her family.
On the Wednesday (June 10) episode of the new Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb podcast, the Newsroom actress, 45, opened up to host Hoda Kotb about navigating her breast cancer diagnosis while building her family with husband John Mulaney. The pair were already parents to son Malcolm, now 4, and were preparing to expand their family when she was diagnosed in April 2023.
When Kotb, also a breast cancer survivor, asked whether she wasn't afraid of what her illness meant for her family plans, Munn said it was the opposite and she acknowledged that will always carry that fear.
"I was afraid, but I realized then that I think I'll be afraid for the rest of my life because we always have to look over our shoulder," she said, explaining that there is always a fear that, despite having a double mastectomy and getting treatment, the cancer could come back. And I had decided that I can't choose where the fear wants to be and wants to sit. It might be sitting passenger side, might be sitting in the back, but it's going to be in the car of my life and it's going to be with me. So I just go, you're there."
Munn and Mulaney went on to welcome daughter Méi via surrogate in September 2024. The X-Men: Apocalypse actress explained how life with her family of four has been "joyful" to experience.
"I don't think I realized until, honestly, all the stuff that I'd been going through the last few years, that I was missing this much joy. That I could be as soft and vulnerable as I have been," she said. "We're in it. It's a mess at times, and we love it like that, and we all really love and like each other."
Kotb shared her own take on finding joy despite fear earlier in the episode while describing the impact of a recent health scare in her own family when she had to take her 7-year-old daughter Hope to the ER. She explained how she had a realization while later experiencing a moment of joy listening to music in the car with the windows rolled down, feeling grateful that her daughter is doing "good" now.
"I was like, wait, Hope felt this good last week and I didn't roll down the windows... I just went to the gym," she said. "So it just reminds us there's celebration all the time. We don't have to have a big scary monster come in for us to say, 'Oh my God, I better appreciate XY and Z.' Like, it's all just sitting there waiting for us."
She continued, "To me, it's just to remind ourselves, don't wait for the darkness always before you see the great light that's out there, because it's always there.
Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb captures authentic, candid conversations between Kotb and special guests about how they find and allow themselves to experience joy in their life to help listeners "maximize" the joy in their own lives. Follow along with new episodes of Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb. and watch the conversations on the iHeartRadio app and at iHeart.com.