‘Home Edit’ star Shearer says Munn supported her after Shearer was diagnosed in 2022 — and she returned the favor when Munn faced the disease the following year.

Not long after Clea Shearer first learned she had breast cancer in 2022, a friend of her husband’s reached out to see how she was doing.

“Olivia was friends with my husband John, but she and I weren’t individual friends at that point,” the Home Edit star, 42, tells PEOPLE of actress Olivia Munn, 44. “But she reached out all the time. She would check in with John, she would check in with me. She was just so amazing and wonderful.”

And then, less than a year later in February 2023, Munn received shocking news — and Shearer had a chance to repay the kindness.

“I was in New York and I got a phone call from her, and she was like, ‘I have just been diagnosed with breast cancer and I have 10 million questions,” Shearer says. “And I said, ‘Oh my God, I’m dropping everything. What can I do? Let me give you all the information I have.’ Olivia and I really have been intertwined now for a couple of years.”

Related: Olivia Munn’s ‘Terrifying’ Breast Cancer Diagnosis After Baby Joy: 4 Surgeries in 10 Months, and Medically Induced Menopause (Exclusive)

Shearer was diagnosed with stage 2 invasive mammary carcinoma, an aggressive form of breast cancer, in March 2022. Months of chemotherapy and radiation followed, along with and six surgeries, including a double mastectomy and a recent procedure over the summer to remove her ovaries.

Shearer, who recently started filming a revamped season of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which she will co-host along with Home Edit partner Joanna Teplin, says going through cancer has allowed her to be a stronger support to others like Munn who are facing something similar. “I never give people advice necessarily, but I can speak from my own lived experience,” she says.

Related: Why Clea Shearer Is Grateful to Put Her Hair Up — and What Her Kids Learned From Her Breast Cancer (Exclusive)

That’s part of the reason Shearer recently partnered with drugmaker Eli Lilly to share her story. “I remember at the very beginning of my cancer journey thinking, ‘I am going to make this cancer have a purpose,’ and I put that as my mission every single day,” Shearer says. “All I can do is share my own experience in hopes that that matters to people and is helpful to people. And I will continue to do that until my last breath.”