Busy Philipps broke down in tears on her talk show on Thursday (20.12.18) after receiving a phone call from Oprah Winfrey.

Busy Philipps

Busy Philipps

The 39-year-old actress was visibly overcome with emotion during an episode of 'Busy Tonight' when her Oprah-dedicated yellow phone rang during the broadcast and she discovered it was the TV icon who was talking to her.

Wiping away tears as she spoke, Busy said: "Oh, my god. Hi Oprah."

Then, Oprah asked: "How are you?"

And Busy admitted: "I'm crying now and I have a cold, but I love you."

Oprah replied: "I'm just calling to make sure this dog gone phone works. It works! It works!"

Busy then told Oprah that regardless of the time, she's always welcome to contact her.

The former 'Dawson's Creek' star said: "Anytime you want to call we can talk about whatever, harvest day, or just like vegetables."

Oprah, 64, subsequently admitted she was pleased to see Busy making a success of her talk show, which premiered earlier this year.

The TV veteran revealed she hopes to see more women follow in her footsteps by hosting their own late-night show.

She said: "It's so good to see a woman on late-night!"

Following the unexpected call, Busy admitted she was struggling to recompose herself.

The actress confessed: "How do we recover from Oprah calling?

"It's just been a wild time in everybody's lives and that was really nice."

Meanwhile, Busy admitted last month that discussing frivolous issues on her show is a great way of "unplugging" from reality.

She explained: "It's okay to care about refugee children being held at the borders and then also do a face mask and like, have fun.

"Otherwise your brain is going to break."

Busy sees her show as a form of escapism, allowing her audience to switch off from the more serious and worrying issues they face on a daily basis.

She said: "We're reaching a point where so many people feel so overwhelmed by world events that they're having a hard time sort of unplugging from it."