Olivia Munn says the first time she felt beautiful after multiple breast cancer surgeries came not in a hospital or at home but on a night out — at friend James Marsden’s 50th birthday party in September 2023 — the same evening her now-husband, John Mulaney, surprised her with a proposal.
Munn, who revealed in an exclusive PEOPLE in 10 interview that she was diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer in April 2023, said she had undergone four rounds of surgery and “was not feeling like myself and feeling pretty or anything like that.” Still, she decided to get dressed up and attend Marsden’s party to see how she would feel. “I got all glammed up and did everything, and I was like, ‘Okay, I feel my best,’ ” the 45-year-old actress recalled. The moment, she said, turned out to be especially significant when Mulaney proposed at their hotel that night.
Mulaney, 43, later told her he’d chosen that night deliberately. “He was like, ‘I knew that you would want to feel really great, and I wanted to give you that moment,’ ” Munn recounted. She added that had she not gone to the party, a proposal would have come eventually but “it would not have happened that day in that moment.” The couple married over the Fourth of July weekend in 2024.
Beyond the personal milestone, Munn is promoting her return to television. She appears in season two of Apple TV+’s Your Friends & Neighbors alongside Marsden, Amanda Peet and Jon Hamm. Munn said she was “excited” to come back and praised the series’ interwoven storytelling. “The first season — when I read the script — everything was so intertwined. It all kind of came back together, and I really enjoyed the mystery of that,” she said, adding that her character grapples with “regret and shame, and justification, and indignation” while trying to win back the goodwill of people who dislike her.
New episodes of Your Friends & Neighbors are available exclusively on Apple TV+. Munn’s comments provide fresh insight into her recovery and how small, joyful moments — an evening of dressing up and friends’ support — helped her begin to feel like herself again after a difficult period of surgery and treatment.
Her account adds a personal angle to Munn’s public narrative about health and resilience, linking a private struggle with a highly publicized engagement and the actress’s professional comeback. By sharing the specific moment she felt beautiful again, Munn framed the proposal and the party as a turning point in both her emotional recovery and her life outside of cancer care.