Busy Philipps Says Michelle Williams ‘Lost It’ When Offered Britney Spears Audiobook Gig

Philipps vividly remembers her close friend getting the momentous call.

Michelle Williams is just like us — and completely “lost it” when Britney Spears reached out.

The “Brokeback Mountain” star was handpicked to narrate the audiobook version of Spears’ memoir, “The Woman in Me,” to rather viral results. While Williams has five Oscar nominations under her belt, this unexpected offer appeared to be the role of a lifetime.

“We lost it,” fellow actor and close friend Busy Philipps told Andy Cohen on Wednesday’s “Watch What Happens Live” episode. “She was like, ‘I have to do this, right?’ I was like, ‘Yes! Obviously!’ And she’s like, ‘I really do, Biz.’ She really felt a connection.”

Williams had clear reasons to feel that way. Though she didn’t endure a 13-year conservatorship like Spears, Williams started out as a child actor who emancipated herself as a teen and had to navigate the perils of Hollywood. The actor has also faced hardship as an adult, including when Heath Ledger, her ex-partner and the father to her daughter, died in 2008.

“We all — and Michelle, even younger than me — we all came up in a very particular time in this industry, that was what the majority of my memoir is about, as young women, and we were subjected to a lot,” Philipps told Cohen.