Busy Philipps has revealed how she reassured her teenage daughter she would survive a brain tumour diagnosis by promising she was not living through a film in which her mother dies before graduation.
The 47-year-old actress, best known for Freaks and Geeks, Dawson’s Creek and Cougar Town, underwent two operations earlier this year after doctors discovered a grade two oligodendroglioma, a rare, slow-growing brain tumour.
Speaking on the Wednesday (14.10.26) edition of Today with Jenna and Friends, Busy described how her diagnosis in February and surgery on 2 March affected her eldest daughter Birdie, 18, who was approaching the end of high school.
Busy said: “My older daughter just turned 18 over the summer. She graduated from high school.”
She continued: “So this was all happening in February, and my surgery was March 2. She actually was in boarding school, and she was home on a break when we found out and when I had the surgery and she stayed an extra week.”
The actress, who also has a younger daughter, Cricket, 13, with her former husband, screenwriter Marc Silverstein, 55, added she struggled with how to explain the seriousness of her condition while protecting her children from unnecessary fear.
She described parenting during the uncertainty surrounding her diagnosis as “so hard to navigate”.
Busy said: “She’s in this moment in her life where her life is just starting, and I think all of a sudden being hit with the reality that something could be really, terribly wrong with her mom may be the scariest thing for any kid to confront.”
As Birdie prepared to graduate and begin the next stage of her life, Busy attempted to reassure her by drawing on the conventions of Hollywood films.
She said: “I just kept saying to her, ‘You’re not in the movie where your mom dies the senior year of high school. I just promise you. You’re in the movie where your mom has a brain tumour and then is on a TV show’.”
The actress received her diagnosis shortly after securing a role in the legal procedural Cupertino, a television project she was determined to continue working on despite the prospect of brain surgery.
Busy underwent treatment only weeks before filming was due to begin, having been told that surgery was necessary to remove the tumour.
She later disclosed two operations had been required.
Busy first spoke publicly about her diagnosis in August, giving People an account of the medical investigations, operations and recovery that had taken place earlier in the year.
She recalled her immediate reaction to learning that doctors had discovered a tumour.
Busy said: “I was hyperventilating and trying to breathe.”
The tumour had been detected during a full-body MRI scan in February. Her initial surgery was followed by a second procedure in April after she developed a staphylococcal infection at the surgical incision. She did not require chemotherapy or radiotherapy following the operations.
Busy also described the different ways her daughters responded to the diagnosis.
She told People Birdie “was kind of beside herself and really, really scared and overwhelmed with emotion”.
Her younger daughter, however, responded more calmly when told about the situation.
Busy recalled: “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.’ ”
The actress has since returned to work on Cupertino, the CBS legal drama in which she plays Natalia Boutella. The series is set in Silicon Valley and follows the world of technology and legal disputes.
Busy first became known to television audiences as Kim Kelly in the cult comedy-drama Freaks and Geeks, before playing Audrey Liddell in Dawson’s Creek and Laurie Keller in Cougar Town.
Her film credits include White Chicks, He's Just Not That Into You and I Feel Pretty, while she also starred in the Netflix comedy series Girls5eva.