Bijou Phillips Biography
Bijou Lilly Phillips Masterson, an American actress, model, and singer, was born on April 1, 1980. She began her professional career as a model. She is the daughter of singer John Phillips and Geneviève Wate. After making her feature film debut in Black and White (1999), Phillips went on to star in Almost Famous (2000), Bully (2001), The Door in the Floor (2004), Hostel: Part II (2007), and Choke (2008). She also made her singing debut with I’d Rather Eat Glass (1999). She performed the recurring part of Lucy Carlyle on the television show Raising Hope from 2010 to 2013.
Bijou Phillips, a multi-talented person, has lived an extraordinary existence. She was raised in South Africa, California, and New York. She was quite good at equestrian sports. To get out of boarding school, she started modeling at age 13 and was one of the youngest people to appear on the covers of “Interview” and “Italian Vogue.” Bijou also made multiple appearances in Calvin Klein commercials. When she was 17, she signed a record deal and started working on her album, “I’d Rather Eat Glass,” which Talking Heads member Jerry Harrison was producing. James Toback later chose her for the lead role in Black & White (1999), and reviewers were raving about her performance.
She was a Bully (2001) cast member, and “The Hollywood Reporter” named her one of 2002’s “Shooting Stars of Tomorrow” in 2002. With her performance in The Door in the Floor (2004), a movie version of John Irving’s novel “A Widow for One Year,” alongside Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger from the previous year, Bijou has continued to produce excellent movies. She most recently finished a main role alongside Anne Hathaway in Barbara Kopple’s 2005 Oscar-winning documentary Havoc, which was written by Stephen Gaghan and directed by Kopple.
She has a number of projects in the works, including Venom (2005) (also known as “Backwater”), which was produced by Scream (1996)’s Kevin Williamson, and the upcoming movie Choke (2008), which stars Anjelica Huston and Sam Rockwell. In What We Do Is Secret (2007), a film about the seminal punk band The Germs from the late 1970s, she plays “Lorna Doom” opposite Shane West. In addition to acting alongside Christopher Masterson in the comedy Made for Each Other (2009), she recently portrayed “Nancy Spungen,” a.k.a. “Sid and Nancy,” in the Abel Ferrara-helmed Chelsea on the Rocks (2008) biopic about the Chealsea Hotel.
Nickname | Bij B |
Gender | Female |
Age | 43 years old (in 2023) |
Date of Birth | April 1, 1980 |
Full Name | Bijou Lilly Phillips |
Profession | Actress, Singer, Model |
Nationality | American |
Birthplace | Greenwich, Connecticut, United States |
Religion | Not Known |
Zodiac Sign | Aries |
Bijou Phillips age
Since Phillips was born on April 1, 1980, she will be 43 years old by 2023.
Bijou Phillips nationality
Phillips was born in the American state of Connecticut’s Greenwich. She is from the USA.
Bijou Phillips height and weight
Phillips is 56 kg (5 feet 6 inches) tall and weighs 56 kg.
Bijou Phillips net worth
The estimated net worth of Phillips is $8 million. She acquired her riches from her acting, modeling, and music careers.
Bijou Phillips Early life and education
The daughter of South African model, artist, and actress Geneviève Wate and John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas, Phillips was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, on April 1, 1980. She was given the name “My Petite Bijou” after the Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross song of the same name (bijou is French for “jewel”). She is the youngest of Phillips’ children and has three half-siblings: Mackenzie, Jeffrey, and Chynna in addition to her brother Tamerlane.
Bijou was placed in foster care with a family in Bolton Landing, New York after her parents divorced and both were determined to be unfit to be her guardians. She intermittently resided there, traveling there for lengthy stays with her parents, who had both bought homes nearby. When she was in the third grade, her father was awarded custody, and they both moved to Lloyd Harbor, a village in the Town of Huntington, Long Island.
The revelation of their half-sister Mackenzie’s ten-year incestuous relationship with their father to Bijou when she was 13 years old, in Wate’s account, had a devastating impact on Bijou’s teenage years, depriving her of her innocence and making her “wary of her father.”
At age 14, Phillips dropped out of school and moved into her own apartment on Fifth Avenue with a housekeeper. She had a rebellious youth in New York City, where she used to party, drink, and use drugs including cocaine, ecstasy, and heroin. She was once referred to as a “wild child” by The Observer. “If you were 14 years old and able to live on your own in an apartment in New York City, and you got invited to all these clubs, and you got a bank account, and you had a car service you could call so that you could go wherever you wanted… ” was how she described this time in her life.
What would occur? Because of her late-night persona and connections to other socialites like the Hilton twins Paris and Nicky, she grew to be somewhat of a fixture in the local tabloids. Her father sent her to rehab when she was 17, following the death of her friend, the 20-year-old Manhattan socialite Davide Sorrenti.
Bijou Phillips Career
Beginnings (1994–1999)
When Phillips was 13 years old, she appeared on the cover of Interview. She then made an appearance on the front cover of Vogue Italia shortly after. Phillips also developed into a Calvin Klein brand ambassador and participated in a number of commercials featuring young people wearing white underwear. The campaigns were roundly criticized as being unsettlingly pedophilic. In an interview, she once said: “It was like, I wanted to go swimming in the ocean, but I was jumping up and down in a puddle.” She has previously professed her dislike of the modeling industry.
At the age of 17, Phillips obtained a record deal and started working on her debut album, I’d Rather Eat Glass, which was produced by Jerry Harrison. Almo Sounds issued it on May 11, 1999, and it is still the only piece of music she has ever released in its entirety. She once worked as a fashion model, and the album’s title declares that she would “rather eat glass” than resume her modeling career.
When writing the songs for the album, Phillips worked with a variety of musicians, including Eric Bazilian, Greg Wells, Dave Bassett, Howard Jones, and Jill Cunniff. I’d Rather Eat Glass was met with mixed reviews when it was first released by music critics, who primarily criticized it for being juvenile. However, her musical approach has been favorably likened to Natalie Imbruglia or Kay Hanley of Letters to Cleo.
In a small role in the independent drama Sugar Town (1999), Phillips made her acting debut. The same year, she appeared in James Toback’s drama Black and White with Robert Downey Jr., Jared Leto, Brooke Shields, and Elijah Wood as an Upper East Side girl seeking to blend in with the black hip-hop culture. However, AllMovie noted: “The picture starts off strong with a provocative portrayal by debutant Bijou Phillips as the most unrepentant seeker of acceptance from her hip-hop-loving buddies. The movie garnered mixed reviews and only attracted a small audience in theaters. Phillips soon recedes into the background, and Toback’s insistence on grafting a typical crime-drama plot hinders the movie.
Acting breakthrough (2000–2005)
In Cameron Crowe’s 2000 semi-biographical musical drama Almost Famous, Phillips costarred with Kate Hudson. Four Academy Award nominations were obtained for the successful movie. Phillips appeared in two independent coming-of-age movies in 2001. She portrayed the devoted friend of a young woman in a prep school in 1980s New York City in Tart alongside Dominique Swain and Melanie Griffith. Phillips was one of the few interesting actors in the movie, according to PopMatters, “thanks to yet another fearless performance”.
She portrayed one of several young adults in South Florida who conspired to kill a common friend who had sexually, physically, and mentally tortured them for years in Bully, a film based on the 1993 murder of Bobby Kent. The movie had a mixed bag of reviews, but renowned reviewer Roger Ebert was a noteworthy fan and gave it four stars out of four. The Hollywood Reporter named her one of 2002’s “Shooting Stars of Tomorrow” for her work in the movie.
In the 2003 thriller Octane, which had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, Phillips co-starred with Mischa Barton as a member of an odd cult of teenage criminals. She starred alongside Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger as the nanny of an author’s young daughter in The Door in the Floor (2004), a drama with strong sexual undertones that was adapted from John Irving’s book A Widow for One Year. As a pampered socialite, Phillips co-starred alongside Anne Hathaway in the drama Havoc (2005).
ViewLondon noted that the “supporting cast are superb, particularly Bijou Phillips” as the “trashy best friend”, and Variety remarked that “as played by Hathaway and Phillips, the friendship between [their characters] rings girlish and true, and comes complete with tantalizing, lesbian-flavored moments”. Due to negative reviews, Havoc was not released in theaters in the United States. In the Kevin Williamson-directed slasher movie Venom from 2005, she played a tragic high school senior.
Horror films (2006–2009)
In 2007, Phillips played the publisher’s girlfriend in the independent horror movie The Wizard of Gore. Additionally, she worked on three movies with Lauren German, whose first was the comedy drama Spin, which was about seven people at a well-known Los Angeles nightclub. As one of three American female art students in Rome who are led to a Slovak village where they are kidnapped and taken to a facility where wealthy clients pay to torture and kill individuals, Phillips played one of these students in Hostel: Part II, the follow-up to Hostel (2005).
She asserted that the torture sequence, which included scalping her with a power saw, required about 45 settings. She said in a 2007 interview, “I don’t think I could do something like this again. “I’m glad I had the experience, and I love my job, but we went into places I didn’t know existed, and I don’t need to do that again.” Hostel: Part II was denied permission to open in theaters in a number of nations, but it did so in the United States to middling box office results.
Phillips portrayed Lorna Doom, the Germs’ bassist and a close friend of singer Darby Crash, in the biographical movie What We Do Is Secret. Phillips accepted the role when she was 17 years old, and she remained dedicated to the project throughout the nearly ten-year process of getting the movie made. She won praise for the role she played; Variety’s Phil Gallo called it “striking” and said that her character “lights up in a unique way whenever she’s in Crash’s company or simply talking about him.”
Abel Ferrara’s Chelsea on the Rocks, a documentary about the Hotel Chelsea, featured Phillips in 2008. She also played a milkmaid alongside Sam Rockwell and Anjelica Huston in the well-liked black comedy Choke, which was based on the same-named novel by Chuck Palahniuk. Phillips portrayed the attractive star singer of a club in 1930s New York City in Dark Streets, her final picture of 2008.
Three of the four independent feature films in which Phillips starred in 2009 starred Danny Masterson. In the romantic comedy Wake, which was her first release of the year, she portrayed an emotionally isolated contemporary lady who meets a man who is grieving his fiancée at a funeral. Phillips starred as the mother of a killer baby in the horror movie It’s Alive, a remake of the 1974 movie of the same name written and directed by Larry Cohen. In its review of the movie, Dread Central noted:
“Bijou Philips is without a doubt the star here, stepping into her role in what is admittedly just a piece of schlock cinema with great aplomb,” said one critic of the film. Phillips and Lauren German reunited for the comedy Made for Each Other, in which Phillips played a lady whose husband determines that in order to morally atone for his infidelity, his wife must also commit infidelity. Her most recent film, the criminal drama The Bridge to Nowhere, had a sex worker as her main character.
Television and hiatus (2010–present)
In the 2010–2014 sitcom Raising Hope on FOX, Phillips portrayed the biological mother of the main character, a serial killer who had been given the death penalty. She was a part of seven different episodes of the show. She had guest appearances in episodes of Hawaii Five-0 and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in 2010 and 2012, and she also made an appearance in the music video for Broken Social Scene’s song “Sweetest Kill” in 2011. Since her last appearance in Raising Hope, Phillips has chosen not to act in order to prioritize her family and health.
Bijou Phillips Personal life
Sean Lennon and Phillips dated at some period in the middle of the 2000s, and she served as the inspiration for and subject of his 2006 album Friendly Fire.
A poker game in Las Vegas is when Phillips and actor Danny Masterson first met. They started dating in 2004. They both practice Scientology. The pair made their engagement public in March 2009, and they wed at an exclusive Irish castle in October 2011. Phillips gave birth to their daughter on February 14, 2014. Masterson and Phillips co-starred in a number of movies and Raising Hope on Fox in 2011.
In February 2017, Masterson reported that Phillips had suffered kidney problems for five years. She battled the disease by leading a stress-free lifestyle, following a vegan diet, and receiving dialysis because she was born with small kidneys. She needed a transplant because she had a blood illness. She underwent a kidney transplant in April 2017.
“I’m 29 now, I’ve talked to everyone who was around during that time, I’ve asked the hard questions,” Phillips claimed in 2009 in response to her sister Mackenzie’s accusations of sexual assault against their father. My sister is not the one I believe. Our father was many different things. Not one of them is this. Mackenzie told her about their incestuous relationship, according to Phillips, who also said that the information was “confusing and scary” and that she was “heartbroken” to think that her family had abandoned her to be with her father. She talked about a song she had composed about her father with the chorus “He touched me wrong” in an interview with Bruce LaBruce from the year 2000, but she did not elaborate on whether the lyrics applied to herself or to someone else.
Masterson, the husband of Phillips, was accused of raping, harassing, and stalking a number of women between 2017 and 2020, including Chrissie Carnell-Bixler, the spouse of artist Cedric Bixler-Zavala. Masterson was given a sentence of 30 years to life in prison in September 2023. That month she filed for divorce afterwards.
Allegations of physical and emotional abuse
Actor Daniel Franzese claimed in November 2017 that Phillips had physically abused him on the Bully set and “ridiculed” him about his sexuality and weight. Later, Phillips expressed regret for her actions. The same month, actress Heather Matarazzo alleged that Phillips had choked her while holding her against a wall just before the start of Hostel: Part II filming.
Bijou Phillips wife
Danny Masterson, an actor Phillips started seeing in 2004, is now her husband.
Bijou Phillips children
Fianna Masterson is the name of Phillips’ daughter. She was living with Danny Masterson, her spouse.
Bijou Phillips family and siblings
Geneviève Wate and John Phillips gave birth to Phillips. Tamerlane is her only sibling; she also has three half-siblings named Mackenzie, Jeffrey, and Chynna.
Bijou Phillips Trivia
Andy Warhol was her godfather.
Chynna Phillips, Mackenzie Phillips, and Jeffrey Phillips’ younger half-sister. sibling of Tamerlane Phillips who is younger.
Daughter of Geneviève Wate and John Phillips
gave birth to her first child on February 14, 2014, a daughter named Fianna Francis Masterson, at the age of 33.
Danny Masterson, her spouse, is the child’s father.
When she was 13 years old, she appeared on the cover of “Interview” magazine, and shortly after that, she made history by becoming the youngest model to ever do so for Vogue (the Italian version).
a young champion equestrienne.
The album “Friendly Fire” by Sean Lennon contains tracks that discuss their breakup.
named after the Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross song “My Petite Bijou.” French for “jewel” is “bijou.”
She would rather do that than return to modeling, as indicated by the album’s title, “I’d Rather Eat Glass.”
(18 October 2011) after a two-year engagement, married Danny Masterson, her boyfriend of seven years.
professional singer-model
Bijou, an animal enthusiast, is the owner of a horse and two dogs. One is a white male Pekinese she acquired in 1996 and named Mama’s Flea Angel Eyes (also known as Flea). The other is a Pekingese/Poodle hybrid named Sweet Pea (also known as Pea), a black female Pek-a-Poo that she acquired in the beginning of 2000 after persuading a reporter who was conducting an interview with her to buy the puppy for her. Finnegan is the name of her horse.
nothing to do with the actress Busy Philipps.
Her father was of English and Irish descent and was born at Parris Island, South Carolina.
is a huge admirer of Motown, Janis Joplin, Ella Fitzgerald, Rickie Lee Jones, Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, and Rickie Lee Jones.
Aunt of Jameson Leon Baldwin, Shane Barakan, and Shane Fontayne Jr.
One of Hollywood’s most well-known party girls is Paris Hilton, who ranks among Tara Reid, Nicky Rothschild, Kimberly Stewart, Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie, and Kim Kardashian.
Paris Hilton and Nicky Rothschild are close friends.
was the entry for January 2007 in the 2006–2007 pinup calendar published by Stuff magazine.
was there at Todd Andrew Meister and Nicky Rothschild’s Las Vegas wedding.
Bijou Phillips Quotes
Why is Bijou divorcing her husband?
Bijou Phillips petitions for Danny Masterson’s divorce Seeks Spousal Support and Full Custody Following Rape Conviction and Sentencing. According to court records obtained by People, the couple did not have a prenuptial agreement. Photographs by Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images
Are Bijou Phillips and Danny Masterson still married?
Background. Bijou Phillips, an actress and singer, and her husband, actor Danny Masterson, have both filed for divorce.
How long was Bijou Phillips married?
Following Danny Masterson’s two rape convictions, other celebrities distanced themselves from him, including actress and model Bijou Phillips, who filed for divorce from him on Monday, ending their 12-year marriage.
Did Bijou file for divorce?
Following Danny Masterson’s conviction for the rape of two women and subsequent sentence to 30–life in prison, actor and model Bijou Phillips filed for divorce from the That ’70s Show actor. According to a statement from lawyer Peter Lauzon, “Ms. Phillips has decided to file for divorce from her husband at this unfortunate time,” according to CBS News.
When did Bijou Phillips get married?
The couple wed in 2011 and had a daughter, age 9, together. TMZ broke the story of the divorce petition first. During this difficult moment, Ms. Phillips has decided to seek for divorce from her husband.