Busy Philipps says she and husband Marc Silverstein have been separated for a ‘really long time’

Busy Philipps and her screenwriter husband, Marc Silverstein, have gone their separate ways after nearly 15 years of marriage.

The "Girls5eva" star, 42, announced Friday on her podcast, "Busy Philipps Is Doing Her Best," that she and Silverstein separated "a really long time ago" and have made the decision to divorce.

“It’s been a really long time now that Marc and I have been separated, and, you know, our kids know, our families know, our friends know,” she said. “And we really discussed, like, how do I handle it sort of, like, publicly. Because when we first separated, it was, like, February of last year."

Though celebrities often issue formal statements when their marriages end, Philipps said she and Silverstein balked at the idea.

"Marc and I talked about it, and when we first separated, like, we couldn’t even think about putting one of those statements out — it made us sick, both of us, like, truly ill," she said.

The couple, who tied the knot in 2007, decided to keep their separation a private affair out of concern for their children, Birdie, 13, and Cricket, 8.

“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," she explained.

The former "Freaks and Geeks" star, who called the couple's split a "journey," went on to say that though their romantic relationship has ended, she and Silverstein still care for one another.

"Well, we love each other very much. And we have these beautiful kids together. And there are a lot of things that really work about our relationship," she said.

Philipps has previously been candid about the strains within the couple's marriage.

In 2019, the "Cougar Town" alum told Harper's Bazaar that she came close to divorcing Silverstein because she felt he wasn't helping enough to share parenting duties of their children.

But when she told her husband she planned to leave him, the news hit him hard.

“Marc was like, ‘I’ll do anything.’ And I was like, ‘OK, then do everything. Because I have done it all, all by myself, and I’m done, dude,’" she recalled.

Silverstein decided then and there that he would be the one to stay home with the couple's kids. He quickly took over morning and bedtime parenting duties and began preparing family meals.

“I was fully out the door,” said Philipps. “I wasn’t expecting anything from him, but what we ended up doing was creating our own system.”

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