Busy Philipps is getting a talk show, joining a small group of women in late-night TV

Culture

Actor and Instagram personality Busy Philipps is reportedly getting her own late-night talk show on E!. The Cut reported Tuesday that the show’s working title is Busy Tonight, and Philipps is slated to executive produce the show with Julie Darmody and Eric Gurian. Philipps seemed to confirm the news on Tuesday, retweeting a link to the Cut story along with the message, “This is who I am now.”

Philipps will join a small group of women hosts who’ve broken into the boys’ club of late-night television. Joan Rivers, who got her television comedy start on late night, had a brief run as a late-night host with The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, which ran from 1986 to 1987 and caused Rivers’s infamous falling-out with late-night powerhouse Johnny Carson.

Samantha Bee’s weekly show on TBS, Full Frontal With Samantha Bee, is in its third season, and Robin Thede hosts The Rundown With Robin Thede on BET. On the streaming service Hulu, comedian Sarah Silverman hosts the talk show I Love You, America With Sarah Silverman. And Chelsea Handler has hosted two talk shows, Chelsea Lately on E! and Chelsea on Netflix.

But on major networks, the late-night lineup is still all men. That’s right — there are three hosts named “James” but no women hosting late-night shows on NBC, CBS or ABC. In fact, little has changed since 2015, when Vanity Fair ran a story on the “titans of late night” along with a photo that featured exactly zero women.

So far there have been no details about what Philipps’ talk show will look like, and whether it will have any particular format or theme, but the announcement comes in the midst of an exciting time for Philipps. She’s currently co-starring in the Amy Schumer comedy I Feel Pretty and has a collection of autobiographical essays coming out in late 2018.