Olivia Munn wasn’t planning on showing her mastectomy scars to the world when she signed on to star in Skims’ latest ad campaign for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but she was inspired to while on set for the photoshoot.
“When Skims approached me to do this campaign, it was just to do their shapewear and their new leggings, and it wasn’t about my scar at all,” she told Today on Wednesday. Then an outfit change prompted a makeup artist to begin camouflaging the scars from Munn’s double mastectomy and reconstruction surgeries, part of her treatment for breast cancer. Munn had an idea.
“We were in the middle of the shoot and we were changing an outfit that could see more of my scars, and so the makeup artist was touching up my scars, and then we got to the double-mastectomy scars and they were really hard to cover up,” she said. “And then I was looking in the mirror and I just thought, I’m done being insecure about my scars.”
The actor, who revealed her diagnosis of Luminal B breast cancer in both breasts in March, froze her eggs and has also had procedures to remove her fallopian tubes and ovaries in addition to her mastectomy and reconstruction.
As she told Vogue in May, “Aggressive cancers need aggressive treatments.”
She and husband John Mulaney welcomed their second child together, daughter Méi June, via surrogate in September, making their son Malcolm a big brother.
Instead of having the makeup artist camouflage her scars, Munn said, she asked a question.
“I said, ‘What do you guys think about showing my scars in this campaign?’ And they were so amazing and thoughtful and wonderful. And we talked it out and we decided to do it,” she said.
“Knowing there are so many women that have these same scars as me, I know that so many of them feel the same way I felt about them for so long. And I hope that they see the Skims campaign,” Munn continued. “Skims is so iconic and associated with beauty and sex appeal, and cancer really doesn’t have that same connotation. So I just really hope that other women who have gone through my same path feel a little better after seeing it.”
In an Instagram post unveiling Munn’s photos, Skims announced that from October 23 to October 31, they will donate 10 percent of proceeds from sales of their bras to leading breast cancer organization Susan G. Komen.
