We’ll take it — Busy Philipps has good news after brain tumor surgery

Here’s an update on Busy Philipps that’s actually uplifting for a change—rare, I know, given the state of celebrity medical news. If you missed it, she’s had quite a dramatic 2026: two surgeries, one rare brain tumour, and a rather public recovery. Now, she’s just shared her six-month MRI results, and for once, it’s mostly good news.

‘Guys, I got my six-month scan, MRI, and it was no sign of tumor.’

Philipps posted the update herself on Instagram, relaying—quite enthusiastically—that there’s no sign of tumour regrowth. That’s significant, since her ordeal began earlier this year with a completely unexpected diagnosis. However, it wouldn’t be a Busy Philipps update without at least one minor caveat: doctors did spot a sinus infection lurking on the scan. She joked about her ‘sinuses being out to get her since day one’, and mentioned she’s had issues in that department for years—including surgery back in 2018. Apparently, her left eye’s been red all week, which tracks with the infection. She said she was set to see the sinus doctor the next morning, so evidently, she’s not leaving anything to chance.

‘I do have a sinus infection in my left sphenoid sinus, which also makes sense because my eye has been red, my left eye, for the past week, and if you are somebody who has followed me for a really long time, you know those sinuses, honey, they have been out to get me since day one!’

The Year of Surgeries

Here’s how we got here: Philipps, 47 and still best known to many for Mean Girls and Cougar Town, found herself booked in for a full-body MRI on a whim earlier this year. To everyone’s surprise—including hers—the scan turned up something amiss in her right frontal lobe. This was later diagnosed as a grade 2 oligodendroglioma, which, to put it plainly, is a rare and thankfully slow-growing type of brain tumour.

• First surgery: 2 March 2026 – five hours in theatre to remove the tumour in one go.
• Second surgery: 27 April 2026 – this one to clear up a staph infection that developed at the incision site. Properly unlucky, though it sounds like she handled it with her usual blunt humour.

Interestingly, even at the time of diagnosis, she had no clear symptoms. In an interview with PEOPLE, she admitted she wasn’t really sure why she’d decided to get the original scan—except for, well, intuition. She called the past half-year ‘the weirdest six months’ and made it plain she’s just grateful to be here and able to work again.