Busy Philipps stepped out with comedian Jason Selvig, sparking dating rumors after revealing she recently underwent brain surgery.
Philipps, 47, and Selvig were spotted holding hands in New York City on Wednesday, August 26, in photos published by Page Six. Neither Philipps nor the street interviewer have publicly addressed their relationship status. Us has reached out to reps for both for comment.
Just hours earlier, the Dawson’s Creek alum revealed that she was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor in February.
“I’m grateful that I’m alive,” Philipps told People, revealing that a Prenuvo full-body scan confirmed the presence of a grade 2 oligodendroglioma, a rare slow-growing tumor.
While Philipps admittedly felt like “hyperventilating” over the diagnosis, she remained steadfast for her daughters’ sakes. (Philipps and ex-husband Marc Silverstein are the parents of Birdie, 17, and Cricket, 13.)
“[Birdie] was kind of beside herself and really, really scared and overwhelmed with emotion,” the Freaks and Geeks alum recalled, referring to her eldest daughter. “I just kept saying to her, ‘Birdie, you’re just not in the movie where your mom dies your senior year of high school. That’s just not the movie that you’re in. I promise you.’”
As for Cricket, Philipps told the outlet that her youngest child had been much calmer about the news.
“Her reaction when I told her was like, ‘OK. You’re going to be fine?’ And I was like, ‘I’m totally going to be fine,’” Philipps said. “And she’s like, ‘OK.’”
Philipps ultimately underwent surgery in March, where doctors removed a 2.6-centimeter mass from her brain.
“It is considered malignant, but it has the best prognosis of all of the malignant gliomas,” Philipps’ neuro-oncologist, Dr. Alexandra Miller, told People in Wednesday’s profile. “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.”
While Philipps’ procedure was successful, she faced a setback the next month when she contracted a staphylococcus on her incision and needed a second surgery for wound debridement. The follow-up procedure was ultimately successful, so the actress will only require future scans to monitor a potential recurrence.
“What am I? The luckiest girl in the world?” she mused.
Philipps has since received a flurry of supportive messages since sharing her diagnosis.
“Everyone (mostly) has been so overwhelmingly kind in the past 24 hours, so thank you so much for all your well wishes and love and prayers and support,” she wrote via Instagram on Thursday, August 27. “But just to reiterate, because the internet loves a clickbait [story], I AM ALREADY RECOVERED! You all have literally watched me recover since March 2, you just didn’t know it! I AM TOTALLY FINE! YAY MEDICINE!”
