Busy Philipps and Marc Silverstein quietly separated early last year, the actress revealed Friday on her Busy Philipps Is Doing Her Best podcast.
The Girls5eva star and Silverstein, the screenwriter behind He’s Just Not That Into You, I Feel Pretty, which he also directed, and more married in 2007. They share two children: 13-year-old Birdie, who is non-binary, and daughter Cricket, 8.
Philipps said that after separating in February 2021, she and Silverstein had told some family and friends, but they kept it to themselves publicly. An exception was when Birdie, who was still processing the breakup, posted about it on TikTok.
“Marc and I really wanted to figure out how it was going to all work and what it was going to look like for our family and for our friends and family before involving my public friends,” Philipps told co-host Caissie St. Onge. “And there was a huge chunk of me that wanted to talk about it here on the podcast, because you and I do so much processing. But because of the way that celebrity culture is and how things get extrapolated, I just… it was a safer bet to not. Do you know what I’m saying? Because the surest way that Marc and I have been able to ensure the privacy of our kids that we love so f****** much was by not involving the public.”
Though they still haven’t finished processing their decision, they decided to announce that their relationship has changed… and is still changing.
“We are in a place where we’ve, like, had these many conversations and therapy talks and all of these things, where we decided that it felt like it’s an OK time for me to at least, like, say it on this podcast,” Philipps said. “I also can talk about the way that we’re doing it, cause it’s a little different.”
For one thing, she explained, she and Silverstein bought a new house together to be the family home, one where they have individual rooms.
“Well we love each other. Very much,” she said. “And we have these beautiful kids together, and there are a lot of things that really worked about our relationship, and the idea that our therapist presented, that my therapist also presented… ‘What if you were able to retain the things that work in your relationship, remove the piece or pieces that don’t and find a way to be committed to your children and their stability and really for yourself as well? Cause, ya know, I think any parent’ll tell ya, I mean, it’s a hard job to do on your own.”
Maintaining a parenting partner in the family home, even in the wake of the split, was especially helpful when Philipps fell ill with COVID-19 this month.
“Marc and I kinda rotate in and out with staying there with the kids. Sometimes we’re both there. We’ve both been there a lot recently with COVID. That was, like, all hands on deck,” the actress said. “And I was so grateful in that whatever, 10 days, that, like, we were doing it the way that we were doing it, because we were able to be with our kids and be all together when we were all sick.”
Still, the former couple’s approach to the end of their marriage hasn’t been easy.
“Look, it’s not for everyone, and obviously, like, there’s a lot of complication and hardship within the arrangement sometimes for us, the two of us,” Philipps said. “The trick, obviously, and the point is to not have that be a thing that the kids feel or see.”
She noted that while she’d used the term “divorce,” that hadn’t made it official.
“We haven’t even, like, filed anything,” Philipps said. “But we also did forget to legally get married for four months or something, so… I do have friends that are like, ‘Are you guys ever gonna actually get divorced?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know. Yes, probably. Probably. I think so. I imagine.'”
The experience reminded her of the mockery that Gwyneth Paltrow faced in 2014, when she announced that she and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin were committed to, as they put it, consciously uncouple.
“I feel like sometimes people have this snark or judgment when they talk about, you know, unconventional ways of… not being in relationships anymore. And, you know, everyone had like a version of rolling their eyes at Gwyneth Paltrow, right, when she started talking about consciously uncoupling, but god, how f****** great for her to have started talking about the fact that there are many different ways to move through relationships changing. And, like everything, relationships can be living things. They can change and become different things if you allow them to.”
