Sometimes, when celebrities get a scary sounding medical diagnosis, they wait until they’re basically in the clear before announcing the news publicly. That’s the case with when it comes to actress Busy Philipps.

The star recently broke the news to PEOPLE that she was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor and had surgery to remove it.

Let’s back up to how this all started.

Back in February, Philipps’ neurologist broke the news to her that she had a brain tumor and that it needed to be removed. Looking back, Philipps explains, “I’m grateful that I’m alive.” She calls the past six months, “the weirdest six months of my life.”

If she hadn’t gotten a Prenuvo scan, she probably still wouldn’t know that she had a brain tumor, but since she did, doctors were able to discover a grade 2 oligodendroglioma, which is a rare and slow-growing tumor.

Philips had been considering getting this full body MRI scan for awhile. It checks for 500 conditions. While she’s glad she got it, she’s not exactly sure why she wanted to get it so much. She shared, “I didn’t know why I wanted to get this scan except for the fact that I just did.”

Back in 2025, her primary care doctor actually talked her out of getting the scan. She claimed she didn’t need it. But then she talked to her cousin’s husband, who is Beverly Hills internist Dr. Justin Donlan, and his words encouraged her to get the scan anyway. He said, “Knowledge is power.”

Her former Dawson’s Creek costar, James Van Der Beek, actually died the day before she got the scan, so it was a stressful time. She also had some family issues to attend to and a meeting about a potential acting job. With everything going on, she considered canceling the scan, but her ex-husband, Marc Silverstein, encouraged her not to cancel the appointment.

The results of the scan were concerning. She was told that she had a lesion on her brain and needed another MRI.

After the results of the second MRI, her neurologist, Dr. Orrin Devinsky, called and told her, “This is a real tumor, and it’s inside your brain. And Busy, it’s got to come out.”

She explained, “I was hyperventilating and trying to breathe.”

At the same time, she was cast on the show “Cupertino.” She decided not to publicly reveal her diagnosis yet, but she did tell her daughters, Birdie and Cricket. Birdie took the news a lot harder than her younger sister, but Philips reassured them both, “I’m totally going to be fine.”

Philips had surgery on March 2nd. It took 5 hours to remove the 2.6 centimeter tumor. When the tumor was biopsied, it was discovered to be a oligodendroglioma.

Her neuro-oncologist, Dr. Alexandra Miller, explained, “It is considered malignant, but it has the best prognosis of all of the malignant gliomas.” She added, “It’s sort of defined as a cancerous tumor based on the ability of the tumor to regrow over time, rather than it looking very malignant under the microscope.”

She was able to go home just two days after surgery, but the drama wasn’t over. When she went in to get Botox, her dermatologist says the incision and told her, “That doesn’t look right. I’m not going to touch it….Can I take a picture of it and will you send it to your surgeons right now?”

That led to antibiotics, a hospital stay and another surgery. She had contracted staphylococcus in the incision, and one of the titanium tacts that was holding her skull together after her first surgery needed to be removed.

She’s walking away from this whole ordeal feeling like “the luckiest girl in the world.”

Watch the video below for more details.