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Busy Philipps, 47, Reveals Brain Tumor Surgery
The actor had no obvious symptoms before a February scan detected a malignant tumor in her frontal lobe
Busy Philipps, seen here in 2024, revealed that she underwent surgery for a brain tumor. It was discovered after an elective full-body MRI scan.
Matt Baron/BEI/Shutterstock
Key takeaways
- A full-body MRI in February detected a 2.6-centimeter tumor in Busy Philipps’ frontal lobe; she had not experienced any obvious symptoms.
- Philipps underwent surgery in March to remove the tumor, then needed a second procedure in April after developing a staph infection at the incision site.
- She does not need chemotherapy or radiation now but will receive regular scans to monitor for recurrence.
Busy Philipps, a familiar face to Gen X viewers thanks to roles on Dawson’s Creek and Freaks and Geeks, had just landed a role on a new CBS series when she learned she needed brain surgery.
The actor, 47, revealed to People in an interview published Aug. 26 that doctors removed a rare malignant brain tumor in March, weeks before she began filming the CBS legal drama Cupertino. A staph infection at the surgical incision site sent her back to the hospital for a second operation in April.
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“I’m grateful that I’m alive,” Philipps told People, calling the past six months “the weirdest” of her life.
Philipps said she had no obvious symptoms when she underwent an elective full-body MRI on Feb. 12. The scan found a lesion in her brain. Follow-up testing confirmed that the mass was a tumor that needed to be removed.
She shared the news with her daughters, Birdie, 18, and Cricket, 13. Birdie, Philipps told People, “was kind of beside herself and really, really scared and overwhelmed with emotion. 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.’ ”
On March 2, doctors removed the 2.6-centimeter mass during an operation that lasted about five hours. A biopsy identified it as a grade 2 oligodendroglioma, a rare, slow-growing tumor. Gliomas are graded by their aggressiveness, with 1 being the slowest-growing and 4 the most aggressive, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Philipps’ neuro-oncologist, Dr. Alexandra Miller, told People that it is considered malignant but has the best prognosis among malignant gliomas.
A glioma is a cancerous tumor that forms in the brain or spinal cord, according to the Cleveland Clinic. There are several types, and symptoms can vary depending on where the tumor forms. They may include headaches, seizures, vision or balance problems, weakness or numbness, trouble speaking or thinking and personality or mood changes.
Brain and spinal cord cancers are uncommon. The American Cancer Society estimates that about 24,740 malignant brain or spinal cord tumors will be diagnosed in the United States in 2026; the average age at diagnosis is 61.
Philipps, however, noted that she had none of those warning signs. She later wondered whether personality changes she had noticed during the previous few years might have been connected to its location in her frontal lobe. She told People she had experienced extreme emotional reactions and assumed they were related to perimenopause.
Her friend, actor Michelle Williams, reminded Philipps of something she had been saying 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.”
After surgery, Philipps told People, “My brain does not feel broken anymore.”
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In April, after her first surgery, her dermatologist noticed that the surgical incision did not look right and urged her to contact her surgeons. Doctors determined that Philipps had developed a staph infection. On April 27, she underwent a second procedure to clear the infection and remove one of the titanium tacks placed during her first surgery.
“The second surgery really threw me,” she told People. “I just felt like I was back to square one, and I was really, really upset.”
Philipps said the experience changed how she thinks about paying attention to changes in her health.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of in having information,” she said. “It’s only empowering.”
The key takeaways were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarity.
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