ex-husband, Marc Silverstein<\/a>, convinced her otherwise.<\/p>\nThe \u201cFreaks and Geeks\u201d alum immediately texted Silverstein \u201ccomical\u201d messages when a lesion was found on her brain.<\/p>\n
She recalled, \u201c[I wrote], \u2018OMG I have a brain tumor.\u2019 And he wrote back, \u2018Busy, what? What are you saying? What are you talking about?\u2019 I was like, \u2018It looks fine. It\u2019s probably benign. I don\u2019t know.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The actress, who played Audrey Liddell on \u201cDawson\u2019s Creek\u201d (pictured above), discovered the grade 2 oligodendroglioma in February. Warner Bros.<\/p>\n
Philipps (pictured above in December 2025) was \u201chyperventilating and trying to breathe\u201d over the news. Variety via Getty Images<\/p>\n
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She underwent another MRI, with a neurologist subsequently telling her, \u201cThis is a real tumor, and it\u2019s inside your brain. And Busy, it\u2019s got to come out.\u201d<\/p>\n
The confirmation left Philipps \u201chyperventilating and trying to breathe\u201d \u2014 and feeling she had no choice but to tell her two children: Birdie, 18, and Cricket, 13.<\/p>\n
Her eldest was \u201ckind of beside herself and really, really scared and overwhelmed with emotion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Philipps remembered, \u201cI\u00a0just kept saying to her, \u2018Birdie, you\u2019re just not in the movie where your mom dies your senior year of high school. That\u2019s just not the movie that you\u2019re in. I promise you.\u2019 [Cricket\u2019s] reaction \u2026 was like, \u2018OK. You\u2019re going to be fine?\u2019 And I was like, \u2018I\u2019m totally going to be fine.\u2019 And she\u2019s like, \u2018OK.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The 2.6-centimeter mass was removed during a five-hour procedure on March 2.<\/p>\n
The \u201cFreaks and Geeks\u201d alum (pictured above on June 23) had the mass removed in March. busyphilipps\/Instagram<\/p>\n
Philipps (pictured above with daughter Birdie in January 2024) went under the knife again in April. Getty Images<\/p>\n
The tumor would \u201chave been much harder to take the whole thing out\u201d had it not been detected early, as it \u201cwould have been two or three times the size,\u201d Philipps\u2019 neuro-oncologist, Dr. John Golfinos, told People.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is considered malignant, but it has the best prognosis of all of the malignant gliomas,\u201d the doctor clarified. \u201cIt\u2019s sort of defined as a cancerous tumor based on the ability of the tumor to regrow over time, rather than it looking very malignant under the microscope.\u201d<\/p>\n
One month into Philipps\u2019 recovery, her dermatologist expressed concern over the incision site during a Botox session.<\/p>\n
The \u201cCougar Town\u201d alum had contracted staphylococcus and needed a second surgery to clear the infection, which \u201creally threw\u201d her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just felt like I was back to square one,\u201d Philipps explained. \u201cI was really, really upset.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201cCougar Town\u201d alum (pictured above in July with Cricket) had contracted a staphylococcus infection. busyphilipps\/Instagram<\/p>\n
Philipps\u2019 ex-husband, Marc Silverstein (pictured above in March 2019), supported her during the health scare. Getty Images for Create & Cultivate and Mastercard<\/p>\n
She gushed that she now no longer feels like her \u201cbrain is broken,\u201d something she\u2019d told BFF Michelle Williams before her diagnosis.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been saying this for the last few years,\u201d Philipps noted. \u201cI wasn\u2019t consciously aware that anything was really wrong, but there was something that was misfiring. Like, I could not get a handle on it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are frequently told by doctors that there is nothing to worry about [when] you kind of know that there\u2019s something to worry about,\u201d she added. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing to be afraid of in having information. It\u2019s only empowering.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Busy Philipps was diagnosed with a rare malignant brain tumor and underwent two brain surgeries during the \u201cweirdest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[268],"tags":[147192,434,1110,7998,2110,18,117,19,17,128],"class_list":["post-657862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-busy-philipps","tag-celebrities","tag-celebrity-illnesses","tag-celebrity-interviews","tag-celebrity-news","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-tv"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117163182542003006","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}