The same year she won an Academy Award, Lupita Nyong’o was in debilitating pelvic pain.
In 2014, she was regularly fatigued, pre-anemic, and felt immense pain during her periods. She said her traditional upbringing enabled the pain to continue.
“When we hit puberty, we are taught that periods mean pain; cramping, clotting, discomfort are all ‘normal,’” she said. “So when my periods became more painful, I didn't question it. When they doubled in length in my twenties, I accepted it. When severe clotting began, I still didn't sound the alarm. I had been taught that pain was simply part of being a woman.”
As it turned out, she had more than 30 uterine fibroids — noncancerous growths that line the walls of her uterus that can cause symptoms like heavy bleeding during and between periods, lower back pain, frequent urination, pelvic pain, and more, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Although many women experience these growths — they affect up to 80% of women by age 50 — many also go without relief, as fibroid treatment is limited to invasive surgeries.
Black women are also disproportionately affected and experience fibroids earlier and with more severe symptoms. And fibroids are also the leading cause of hysterectomies in the United States, which can have “profound consequences for a woman’s body, identity, and reproductive future,” Nyong’o said.
Nyong’o explained that fibroids were never brought up during her annual gynecological exams, but once she was faced with constant pain, she insisted her doctor listen, and she finally received an ultrasound.
Once the fibroids were discovered 12 years ago, she opted for a fibroid removal surgery and asked her doctor what she could do to prevent them in the future.
“Her response was devastating,” Nyong’o shared, “‘You can’t. It’s only a matter of time until they grow again.’”
Unless the uterus is completely removed, surgery doesn’t guarantee fibroids won't come back, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Unfortunately, Nyong’o’s fibroids have returned. Now, she revealed, she has more than 50 fibroids, the largest as big as an orange.
“And I’m being faced with the same options,” she told TODAY. “Surgery or live with the pain.”
The 42-year-old will make her own medical decisions with her care team, but this second round of fibroids has spurred her to action to help give others more options to treat this condition, besides invasive surgeries.
Nyong’o has partnered with the Foundation for Women’s Health and GoFundMe to launch a fundraiser and pave the way for a research grant that supports the development of minimally invasive and non-invasive fibroid treatments.
“It’s very empowering to play a role in solving your own problem,” she said.
The fundraising campaign is called #MakeFibroidsCount, calling for donations to the research fund and encouraging others to share their own lived experiences with the condition on social media.
“When something affects 8 out of 10 women (with Black women impacted at higher rates) and we’re still caught off guard by it, that’s not individual bad luck — that is systemic failure,” Nyong’o wrote for the campaign.
“There’s something deeply wrong when a serious, mysterious health problem is so common that it’s treated as casual, as inevitable. We must reject the normalization of female pain.”
According to Katy Brodsky Falco, founder and executive director of the Foundation of Women’s Health, the organization plans to select “innovative proposals” for minimally invasive treatments for fibroids.
“If we look forward to the next generation of women, doctors will not be uneducated about the symptoms of fibroids and then provide organ removal as a line of first offense against this,” Brodsky Falco told TODAY.
The fundraising campaign includes images of Nyong’o in a Renaissance-style portrait, holding a basket of fruit. This isn’t just for aesthetics; “Doctors use fruit to describe fibroids because it is the easiest way to convey their size,” the campaign explains.
“The comparison is convenient but the consequences of these growths can be very severe. These aren't fruits we chose to harvest; they’re unwanted growths that can cause debilitating pain, heavy bleeding, infertility, and a profound loss of control over our own bodies,” the campaign continues.
“By reclaiming the fruit metaphor, we’re making visible what has been invisible, transforming medical jargon into a symbol of resistance and solidarity.”
So far, the fundraiser has raised over $35,000 of its $200,000 goal, with Nyong’o bringing in over $22,000 of those donations.
In addition to these efforts, Nyong’o has also taken her fight to Congress. In July 2025, she joined four Congresswomen and two Senators in Washington, D.C. to introduce a package of uterine fibroid bills, designed to expand research funding, increase early detection and interventions, study the causes of uterine cancer, and increase public awareness, the actress shared in an Instagram post.
“I’m speaking up because silence serves no one. The presence of pain is a signal that something must change. Let's hear that signal. Let's amplify it,” Nyong’o wrote for the campaign.
“And let’s work together to eradicate the pain. We deserve better. It’s time to demand it.”
You may also like: Mae Whitman on endometriosis: The worst part 'isn't the gunshot-wound pain,' it's medical gaslighting
Header image by Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0)
