Actress Busy Phillips (Illinois, 47) was found to have a malignant brain tumor last February, one day after the death of her Dawson’s Creek co-star James Van Der Beek, who suffered from colon cancer. The diagnosis, after which she underwent two surgeries, was a surprise to her, as she had no symptoms and a doctor had assured her in 2025 that she was healthy after her annual medical check-up. Even so, she wanted to have a full-body MRI because she saw on Instagram that this test can detect more than 500 diseases. “I didn’t know why I wanted to get this test, I just did it,” she has now told People exclusively. It was another doctor, her cousin’s husband, who told her that “knowledge is power” when it comes to general well-being and that she had nothing to lose by doing it. “His words deeply impacted me,” she recalls in the interview published this Wednesday, August 26.
Busy Phillips had her study scheduled for January, but had to postpone it due to a storm in New York, where she resides. One day before her appointment, which was rescheduled for February 12, she received the news that James Van Der Beek had passed away; the actor with whom she shared scenes in the successful nineties teen series was 48 years old. “Should I cancel it?” Philipps then asked her ex-husband, Marc Silverstein, while grieving for her friend. “He told me, ‘Maybe it’s the best thing you can do for your friend this morning. Go get the MRI,’” she recalls in the conversation with People, in which she speaks publicly for the first time about her oligodendroglioma —a rare type of brain tumor— grade 2.
The scan revealed a lesion in her brain, although based on its shape, the doctor ruled out glioblastoma, an aggressive and incurable cancerous tumor. But the results offered her no comfort. The doctor for this actress, who specializes in playing supporting characters, announced that she would have to undergo more studies as soon as possible to more closely examine the exact nature of the lesion. But it was a terrible time for it: the day after the MRI, Phillips had to meet with the creators of the series Cupertino to discuss a possible role —which she got; she is now in the middle of filming—. She also had a trip to Los Angeles to film a cameo in the Netflix series Bad Thoughts. And she planned to travel to Arizona to be with her sister, who in turn had to undergo an operation.
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After consulting with other specialists, she finally underwent a first surgery to treat the brain lesion. “I was hyperventilating and trying to breathe,” she recalls about when she learned of the intervention. She was afraid that something would go wrong and also that she wouldn’t be able to work, but she stayed strong for her two daughters. “I kept telling her: ‘Birdie [her daughter], you are not in the movie where your mother dies in your senior year of high school. That’s not the movie you’re in. I promise you,’” she recalls in the interview with People.
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The operation took place on March 2, a five-hour procedure in which the 2.6-centimeter tumor was removed, and from which she recovered quickly. “I was walking around the hospital and some of my nurses told me that patients like me are the ones they worry about the most, because they felt I wasn’t going to slow down enough to rest,” she says.
Shortly after, when she went for Botox last April, the doctor saw the scar on her head and told her she needed to go to the hospital to get it checked: she had contracted staphylococcus bacteria in the incision and needed new surgery to remove the small titanium pins that had been placed in her skull and eliminate the infection. “The second surgery affected me greatly. I felt like I was back to square one and was very, very affected,” she tells the magazine. Although she does not need chemotherapy or radiation therapy, Philipps will undergo regular scans to monitor for a possible recurrence.
“I’m grateful to be alive,” she summarizes about “the strangest six months” of her life. “I’m the luckiest girl in the world,” says the actress, who also says she had a lot of support during that period, including from Michelle Williams, her Dawson’s Creek co-star, and also from Kimberly Van Der Beek, the late actor’s wife.
