After the sudden and unexpected cancellation of her E! late night talk show Busy Tonight, Busy Philipps is getting back in the game! “We’re working really hard to bring everyone something that I think is going to be pretty special, and I’m excited to be able to announce it — I think, hopefully it will be soon!” she teased in an EXCLUSIVE interview with HollywoodLife.com. “I’m really excited.” Busy added that “so many woman have come up to me to talk about my show” during her short trip down to Miami ahead of the Super Bowl, in partnership with Olay. “It just makes me even more certain that we were really doing something that was special and different, and speaking to an audience that is underserved,” she said.
The actress continued, “I wanted to be able to continue to make things for my fans and for women, and girls, and men, who aren’t getting the kind of content we were providing anywhere else.” Just last month, Busy shared on her Instagram some of her “almostgrams” of 2019 (photos she almost posted on Instagram last year “but then thought better of it.”) This included some photos of herself crying when she found out about Busy Tonight‘s cancellation, along with screenshot of texts with an E! executive. “I was blindsided, especially since the last text I had from the head of E(who’s now gone🤷♀️) was about marketing for busy tonight that he was excited to tell me about,” she wrote in the post. In the texts, Busy signed off by saying, “Nah dude. You’re bad at your job. Do better” — like a BOSS, delivering some real 2020 energy.
Busy is currently starring in Olay’s Super Bowl ad, which fits perfectly into that big female empowerment energy she’s always striving for. The advertisement brings together retired astronaut Nicole Stott, Lilly Singh, Katie Couric, Taraji P. Henson and Busy, who are on a mission to #MakeSpaceForWomen. “Part of what helps push the conversation forward is continuing to have the conversation. So, being vocal about gender parity across all industries is important to keep talking about, pay equality for women and especially women of color is important to keep talking about and fighting for,” Busy said. “I think that for girls and young women, and all women, actually, it’s really important to see themselves reflected in media in a way that is empowering and shows them in many different roles, not just reinforcing traditional ideas of what gender is.”
As the mother of two girls — Birdie, 11, and Cricket, 6 — Busy revealed that she thinks about them when taking part in jobs like this one, because she “wants them to know anything is possible for them. “Part of the way that people determine what they can see for themselves is what they see reflected back to them in the images that they consume, the media that they consume, the commercials that they see…So, Olay pushing this message forward about women in STEM, supporting Girls Who Code, in a Super Bowl commercial is important for everyone to see — for women and men to see.”
As part of their Super Bowl campaign, Olay is donating one dollar to Girls Who Code every time the #MakeSpaceForWomen hashtag is used on Twitter leading up to and during the Big Game. Olay wants to enable the next generation of female scientists, engineers, programmers and space explorers to Face Anything.