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Lupita Nyong’o — The Kind 50

Lupita Nyong’o, seated in a rust-coloured draped dress, holds a woven basket of fruit against her knee, with more fruit heaped around her.

giving women better options

The same year Lupita
Nyong’o won an Academy
Award, doctors found
nearly 30 uterine fibroids
growing inside her. She had
surgery, and kept it private.Doctors compare fibroid size
to fruit as clinical shorthand.
Lupita turned it into something
else: a way to make the
invisible impossible to ignore.

Lupita Nyong’o, in a dark room, holds grapes, figs and an orange up to her chin in both hands.
8out
of10

women will deal with 
uterine fibroids

A health disparity

For Black women, fibroids happen
younger, grow larger, and get treated
more aggressively—often with
major surgery.

And when Lupita’s fibroids came back
a decade later, she didn’t book a
quiet surgery.

I no
longer
want to
remain
silent

A close-up portrait of Lupita Nyong’o in a white blazer, her chin resting on her hand.
Lupita Nyong’o, in a cream blazer, speaks at a hearing table with a box of tissues in front of her.

so she took it to congress

Holding nothing back

Lupita stood before the Congressional
Black Caucus, in tears, advocating for an
end to the normalization of female pain.

Weeks later, lawmakers introduced a
federal push for uterine fibroid research
funding, early detection, and better
treatment options.

The United States Capitol at sunrise, seen across a lawn of green trees.
A woman in a mustard blazer and layered gold necklaces smiles at her phone camera from inside a car.
Lupita Nyong’o, in a dark room, sits among heaped fruit with her arms crossed.

$400k

in grants towards 
researching uterine fibroids

A woman holds a blue bowl of apples and oranges against a lilac wall.
A woman in a pink dress sits among orchids with a basket of fruit.

But legislation takes years.
So she partnered with the
Foundation for Women’s
Health and launched the
#MakeFibroidsCount campaign
to fund the research now.

Because no one deserves
to suffer in silence.

A woman in glasses holds a lemon and an orange up to the camera.
A woman in a band T-shirt holds a bowl of apples, an orange and an avocado.

You don’t have
to carry it alone

Start a GoFundMe
Halved and whole grapefruit, lemons and a kiwi, with a sprig of leaves and scattered blueberries.