SHOCKING DISCOVERY

’90s Star Diagnosed With Rare Brain Tumor

The “Dawson’s Creek” and “Freaks and Geeks” star has shared details of her surgeries and the “weirdest six months” of her life.

Busy Philipps was diagnosed with a rare cancerous brain tumor on February 12 that required two surgeries. The 47-year-old spoke out about her scary diagnosis for the first time in a tell-all interview with People magazine on August 25. She received the alarming news of the grade 2 oligodendroglioma from her neuro-oncologist just one day after her former Dawson’s Creek costar James Van Der Beek died of cancer. She reportedly considered canceling the revealing full-body MRI scan but was convinced otherwise by her ex-husband, Marc Silverstein. The tumor was caught early and successfully removed on March 2, with her doctor noting that if they had waited, it would’ve been much more difficult to handle as it would’ve grown two or three times its size. “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,” she urged in the People interview. “There’s nothing to be afraid of in having information. It’s only empowering.” Phillips, mother to daughters Birdie, 18, and Cricket, 13, says while Cricket was optimistic, Birdie was “beside herself.” “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.’”