Busy Philipps is recalling the harrowing moment that she witnessed her eldest daughter, Birdie, have a seizure over FaceTime.
Philipps, 44, detailed her child’s health scare during the Wednesday, December 13, episode of her “Busy Philipps is Doing Her Best” podcast, noting she picked up a FaceTime call from 15-year-old Birdie, who currently attends a boarding school in Sweden, earlier this month.
“I was just kind of like muttering to myself and then I heard Marc [Silverstein] screaming for me and I was like, ‘What does this f–king guy want now?’” the actress said on Wednesday, referring to her ex-husband. “And I went upstairs but then I heard his voice and I knew something was really wrong. And he just said, ‘It’s Birdie, it’s Birdie. She’s had another seizure. The paramedics are on the phone.’”
Philipps — who also shares daughter Cricket, 10, with Silverstein, 52 — joined her ex in front of the camera, where they saw paramedics tending to Birdie.
“She had just come out of the seizure and she was still in the post-aura state. They were like, hooking her up with stuff,” Philipps recalled. “[Birdie’s] friend who was with her, she was holding the phone so she was kind of, it was like this weird medium shot. So you could see everything that was happening. So it felt, it was just so weird.”
The Girls5Eva star noted that Birdie, who recently started using she/her pronouns again, was gesturing for the camera and calling out for “Mama.”
“It was really awful seeing it on a screen, being in a different country across an ocean,” she added, noting that Birdie previously suffered a seizure while Philipps was working on the film adaptation of the Mean Girls musical.
Birdie’s friend Sarah had noticed the teen choking and vomiting when they went to see a movie in Stockholm, several hours away from their school. A fellow moviegoer called paramedics immediately, who swiftly arrived on the scene to provide aid. While Sarah was trying to get in touch with the school and their dorm house parent, Philipps was focused on traveling overseas at the earliest chance.
“I was literally googling private planes. I was like, ‘How much does it cost? $100,000? Can I put that on a credit card? How does that work?’” she said. “I was like,
‘How do I not know anyone with a f—king private plane? I got to hang out with fancier people. Would Taylor Swift fly me to Sweden right now? Who knows Taylor Swift?’”
Philipps eventually made it to Birdie’s bedside after she was taken to a local hospital, sharing Instagram photos from the ordeal on Wednesday.
“Birdie is fine. I am fine. We are all going to be OK,” Philipps captioned her post in part. “But it’s been a time. And a year.”
