Busy Philipps Had an Emotional Garage Sale in N.Y.C. — and Even Bestie Michelle Williams Donated (Exclusive)

Philipps and her ex, Marc Silverstein, teamed up with Cure Thrift to empty out their storage unit and sell a bunch of their clothes, housewares and more

When it came time to really start cleaning out Busy Philipps and Marc Silverstein’s Connecticut warehouse holdings after their split, they figured they might as well sell it and do something good with the money.

The two — who separated in 2021 after 14 years of marriage — put the effort into organizing a real garage sale (sans garage) in New York, rather than having someone else do it for them.

“I could barely walk this morning, I’m not kidding,” Philipps, 44, tells PEOPLE on Saturday morning just before opening the doors to the public for their two-day sale. She was at Cure Thrift in New York’s Union Square until after midnight the night before and almost every day the week before helping set up the space.

“Marc and I have been here all week, fully involved, creating the whole experience,” she adds as she walks around the store.

Busy Philipps painting at her garage sale.

Hedy Phillips

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It’s set up in an additional window at the Cure Thrift store that owner Liz Wolff says they like to use for special pop-ups like this one. Wolff — who donates proceeds from her store to diabetes research — and Philipps connected for the sale by chance — meeting while Philipps was on set at Wolff’s house.

“On that set, we were just talking more and more and more, and I was like, ‘[Marc and I] I’ve had all this stuff in storage for almost four years — that’s too long,'” she says. “Marc and I talked about it. What should we do? We have to stop. We have to get through this moment in time and so it felt like the perfect moment.”

They collected clothes — both theirs and their children’s (they share children Birdie, 15, and Cricket, 10) — shoes, jewelry, decor, supplies and whatever else was sitting in storage after moving to New York from Los Angeles. Angeles and subsequently decided to part ways a few years later.

The first thing Philipps had in her hand at the start of the interview was a heart-shaped necklace she bought during the shoot Dawson’s Creekwhich was broadcast from 1998 to 2003.

“It’s a very important moment, I know,” she says of the style.

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Clothing donated by Michelle Williams for Busy Philipps Garage Sale.

Hedy Phillips

Also included in her garage sale are pieces of pottery she made herself, pieces she jokes are her “early work.” She’s still raffling off the pig pot on the Cure Thrift website, and tickets are $10 each. Proceeds from these ticket sales will go to the National Network of Abortion Funds.

“We are donating money that is necessary at this time, unfortunately, but we are here,” says Philipps.

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Philipps has also called on her friends to support her divorce sale – but she says best friend Michelle Williams is the only one who has offered her items to sell. So very fittingly, she set up a section in Cure Thrift just for her, complete with a cardboard cutout of Williams.

“This is Michelle’s corner, obviously,” Philipps says with gusto, pointing to a rack of clothes and a cutout. “She sent this [cardboard cutout] to me when I lived in Los Angeles because she said, ‘I want to be with you always.’ Then I moved here, so now we’re close so I don’t have to keep her in my home.”

Instead, Philipps put her cardboard cutout in storage with the other stuff and pulled it out for this sale. Although she says she had it with her Busy tonight for a while, where she would “constantly scare people”.

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Marc Silverstein and Busy Philipps 2019.

Sasha Haagensen/Getty Images

Customers who stopped by were even treated to some of Phillips and Silverstein’s truly personal items from their time together. Philipps sold out her wedding veil, and Silverstein, 52, picked up some party favors from her 50th birthday party.

“We’ve got a few mugs left over from my birthday. They’re big and they’re very sturdy,” he says with a laugh. “But no beach towels. They were a popular item and we didn’t over-order.”

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Philipps candidly admitted on Instagram before her weekend sale that it was the “weirdest thing” she’d done and that she “could cry while it’s happening,” but she seemed a little calmer as the sale began. As a self-proclaimed hoarder, she says she wanted to be there at the store to see who would be going home with her stuff — so she could know what kind of happy homes they would all have.

She also tells PEOPLE that with this long-awaited purge of Silverstein’s and her belongings, it was “cool” to see the event come together in a way that felt celebratory. She also wanted to be able to show “a different way of breaking up,” she wrote on Instagram about her current status with Silverstein.

“Nothing happens overnight and that’s why we’re where we are now and that’s great and that’s what we wanted,” she says. “This was always our goal to be in this place together and I’m just thankful that we are.”

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Source: HIS Education