Actress Busy Philipps is sharing her story of survival after undergoing successful brain surgery earlier this year to remove a rare central nervous system tumor. Speaking candidly in a new interview, the 47-year-old Cougar Town star reflected on the life-changing experience, calling the past six months “the weirdest six months of my life.”
“I’m grateful that I’m alive,” Philipps shared.
The health journey began unexpectedly in early 2026 when Philipps decided to book a preventative, full-body MRI scan simply on a gut feeling.
“I didn’t know why I wanted to get this scan except for the fact that I just did,” she recalled.
Following the tragic passing of her close friend James Van Der Beek, Philipps almost canceled her appointment, but her ex-husband, Marc Silverstein, encouraged her to keep it:
“He’s like, ‘Maybe it’s the best thing you could do for your friend this morning. Go get that scan.’”
The imaging scan revealed a 2.6-centimeter mass on her brain. Philipps recalled her initial disbelief when communicating the results to Silverstein:
“The texts to my ex-husband are comical. While I was on the phone with Dr. Donlan, I texted Marc, ‘OMG I have a brain tumor.’ And he wrote back, ‘Busy, what? What are you saying? What are you talking about?’ I was like, ‘It looks fine. It’s probably benign. I don’t know.’”
Navigating the news with her daughters, Birdie, 18, and Cricket, 13, Philipps maintained an reassuring, positive front:
“I just kept saying to her, ‘Birdie, you’re just not in the movie where your mom dies your senior year of high school. That’s just not the movie that you’re in. I promise you.’”
“Her reaction when I told her was like, ‘Okay. You’re going to be fine?’ And I was like, ‘I’m totally going to be fine.’ And she’s like, ‘Okay.’”
On March 2, Philipps underwent brain surgery to remove the mass. Biopsy results confirmed the tumor was an oligodendroglioma—a rare, highly treatable central nervous system tumor originating in the brain’s supportive glial cells. While recovery was initially smooth, Philipps developed a staphylococcus infection at her incision site a month later, which was caught early by her dermatologist during an appointment for Botox. Following a debridement procedure to clear the infection, Philipps reflected on the timing of both discoveries:
“What am I? The luckiest girl in the world?”
Her longtime best friend, actress Michelle Williams, offered a powerful perspective that helped connect the dots regarding symptoms Philipps had been experiencing for years:
“She said, ‘Busy, you have been saying for the past two years, My brain feels broken.’ And she was right. I have. I’ve been saying this for the last few years. . . . I wasn’t consciously aware that anything was really wrong, but there was something that was misfiring. Like, I could not get a handle on it.”
Now fully recovered, Philipps reports a total shift in her daily well-being:
“My brain does not feel broken anymore. We are frequently told by doctors that there is nothing to worry about [when] you kind of know that there’s something to worry about. There’s nothing to be afraid of in having information. It’s only empowering.”
