The good advice Michael Strahan gave Olivia Munn amid her mother's cancer journey
Amid Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Olivia Munn stopped by "Good Morning America" on Wednesday to reflect on her breast cancer journey and the message that Michael Strahan once shared with her about being a caregiver.
"It's one thing to be a cancer patient, it's another thing to be the caregiver of someone going through cancer," said Munn, whose mother was diagnosed with cancer a year after her own cancer diagnosis.
Munn recalled that when her mom was diagnosed with Stage 1 HER2-positive breast cancer, Strahan's daughter, Isabella Strahan, was fighting her own cancer battle – she revealed in 2024 that she had been diagnosed with a medulloblastoma brain tumor.
"I was struggling so much. I just kept thinking about what my mom had to go through," Munn told Strahan, adding that she remembered telling him then, "I just want to put it onto my cancer tab. Like let me do it. I can do it, I don't want her to go through this, I want to do it and I feel so helpless."
The "Your Friends and Neighbors" star then said that Strahan told her something that has stayed with her throughout her journey.
"But you can't," Munn said Strahan told her. "You can't do it for them, but what you can do is be there for them."
"And it was so simple and I knew that you were doing it for your daughter," Munn said. "And I thought if you can do it, then I can do it."
Munn said Strahan's words gave her a "roadmap to get through it" and be there for her mother.
Munn's words made Strahan a bit emotional during Wednesday's show. "You're just one of the most amazing and strongest people that I know," he told Munn.
Looking ahead, Munn said that she and Senator Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) are introducing a bill in November that aims to get the Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Tool, or BCRAT, into the standard of care for all doctors who have female patients.
According to the National Cancer Institute, the BCRAT, also known as the Gail Model, "allows health professionals to estimate a woman's risk of developing invasive breast cancer over the next five years and up to age 90 (lifetime risk)."
The tool uses a woman's personal medical and reproductive history and the history of breast cancer among her first-degree relatives to estimate breast cancer risk and her chance or probability of developing invasive breast cancer in a defined age interval, according to the NCI.
Munn has credited the BCRAT for catching her own cancer. She previously revealed that her risk assessment score was 37.3% higher than the 20% high-risk threshold that typically prompts a recommendation for additional breast cancer screening or diagnostic tests.
After her diagnosis, Munn underwent a double mastectomy, an ovariectomy and a partial hysterectomy.
Following her diagnosis in 2023, Munn also urged her mother and sister to take the BCRAT. She revealed in 2025 that her mom was subsequently diagnosed with Stage 1 HER2-positive breast cancer.
"It saved my life," Munn told "GMA" on Wednesday. "It saved my mother's life. We both had clear mammograms, clear ultrasounds and because our score was high, we went to get an MRI."
The actress added that her goal in supporting the legislation she and Sen. Kelly will introduce to Congress is so that "every doctor, when you go to see them, they say what's your cholesterol, what's your blood pressure, what's your height and weight, what's your lifetime risk assessment score."
"We're asking for everyone to just help us help women just a little bit more," she said. "This is something that could make a huge huge difference."
