Busy Philipps: Witnessing Daughter’s FaceTime Seizure: Busy Philipps reveals details of a distressing medical incident involving her daughter during her time away at boarding school.
In a recent episode of her podcast “Busy Philipps is Doing Her Best,” the “Girls5eva” star, Busy Philipps, disclosed a concerning incident involving her 15-year-old daughter, Birdie. The teenager, whom Philipps shares with her estranged husband Marc Silverstein, experienced a seizure while on an outing with a friend.
“I heard Marc screaming for me, and I was like, ‘What does this…guy want now?'” Philipps recounted to co-host Caissie St. Onge. “And I went upstairs, but then I heard his voice, and I knew something was really wrong. He just said, ‘It’s Birdie, it’s Birdie. She’s had another seizure. The paramedics are on the phone.'”
Philipps revealed that Birdie, currently attending school in Sweden, had gone to Stockholm with her friend Sarah to watch a movie at a theater. The actress commended Birdie’s friend for quickly securing the necessary medical attention when the seizure occurred. “She’s 17, but this girl managed to get one person to go tell the theater, to shut it…down,” Philipps shared. “She got two guys that they obviously didn’t know that were sitting behind (them) – because Birdie started choking and throwing up – to move Birdie gently to the ground and put her on her side. She got someone else to call the Swedish 911.”
Philipps expressed the “terrifying” experience of observing her daughter’s condition through a FaceTime call with paramedics.
“It was like this strange medium shot. So, you could see everything that was happening,” Philipps recounted. “It was just so bizarre. She was reaching toward the camera and just calling out for me. Just saying, ‘Mama. Mama. Mama. Where are you?'”
Birdie had experienced a seizure before while Philipps was filming “Mean Girls.” However, the actress expressed the agony of witnessing it from a distance, emphasizing, “It was really awful seeing it on a screen, being in a different country across an ocean.”
Philipps shared that the ordeal resulted in some humorous tension between her and Birdie shortly after she and Silverstein traveled to pick her up from Sweden. She mentioned that her daughter, feeling tired and “grumpy,” was being “so mean” to her as they prepared to head home.
“I slipped on ice and fell, and the kids were laughing at me,” Philipps shared. “And I was like, ‘I hope you have a daughter someday that’s as mean to you as you’ve been to me.’ And then Birdie is screaming, ‘I just had a seizure.’ And then Marc was treating us both like we were his teenagers.”