--- title: Tina Fey Admits She Was the 'Mean Girl' in High School description: "I admit it openly" canonical: https://time.com/4155975/tina-fey-admits-she-was-the-mean-girl-in-high-school/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-19T14:41:25.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:47:48.559Z og:title: Tina Fey Admits She Was the 'Mean Girl' in High School og:description: "I admit it openly" og:url: https://time.com/4155975/tina-fey-admits-she-was-the-mean-girl-in-high-school/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt95fee77ce05e8a2e/698876385f570f1501b1ee8f/tina-fey.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: "Sisters" New York Premiere og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Tina Fey Admits She Was the 'Mean Girl' in High School twitter:description: "I admit it openly" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt95fee77ce05e8a2e/698876385f570f1501b1ee8f/tina-fey.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Tina Fey Admits She Was the 'Mean Girl' in High School > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ## Video: Sisters - Official Trailer [Watch (HLS stream): Sisters - Official Trailer](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/3WVfOhjb.m3u8) (2:42)  _Published 2015-07-15. Sisters - Official Trailer_ by [Karen Mizoguchi / People](https://time.com/author/people/) ## Karen Mizoguchi / People Contributor Dec 19, 2015 2:41 PM UTC  Tina Fey attends the "Sisters" premiere on Dec. 8, 2015 in New York City. Tina Fey attends the "Sisters" premiere on Dec. 8, 2015 in New York City. Brad Barket—Getty Images by [Karen Mizoguchi / People](https://time.com/author/people/) ## Karen Mizoguchi / People Contributor Dec 19, 2015 2:41 PM UTC Actress and _Mean Girls_screenwriter [Tina Fey](http://www.people.com/people/tina%5Ffey) was the Regina George in high school. Which begs the question, did art imitate life? The _Sisters_ star reveals she was the alpha Plastic during her pre-fame days telling Net-a-Porter’s[_The Edit_](http://www.net-a-porter.com/magazine/330/17), “I was \[the Mean Girl\], I admit it openly.” And decades later, Fey, 45, reflects on what drove her to bully. “That was a disease that had to be conquered,” she says adding, “It’s another coping mechanism – it’s a bad coping mechanism – but when you feel less than (in high school, everyone feels less than everyone else for different reasons), in your mind it’s a way of leveling the playing field. Though of course it’s not.” She further confessed that her desire to be funny was a coping mechanism. “For me it was about hitting age 13 and realizing, ‘OK, I’m not going to glide by on looks. I’m a normal-looking person, but that’s not going to be where my bread is buttered.'” The _Saturday Night Live_ alum calls her mean girl past a lesson learned in that “saying something terrible about someone else does not actually level the playing field.” Now as a mother to two young daughters, Fey even jokes: “If I meet a girl of 14 or 15 today who is that kind of girl, I am secretly, in my body, afraid. Even though I’m 45.” Funny enough for her latest role in _Sisters_, the seven-time Emmy winner relives a bit of her high school years. Reteaming with real-life BFF [Amy Poehler](http://www.people.com/people/news/category/0,,personsTax:AmyPoehler,00.html), the pair play siblings who throw a wild party at their childhood home. _This_ [_article_](http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20974879,00.html) _originally appeared on_ [_People.com_](http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20974879,00.html) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4155975/tina-fey-admits-she-was-the-mean-girl-in-high-school/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4155975/tina-fey-admits-she-was-the-mean-girl-in-high-school/"},"headline":"Tina Fey Admits She Was the 'Mean Girl' in High School","datePublished":"2015-12-19T14:41:25.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:47:48.559Z","description":"\"I admit it openly\"","url":"https://time.com/4155975/tina-fey-admits-she-was-the-mean-girl-in-high-school/","keywords":["Newsfeed","celebrities"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt95fee77ce05e8a2e/698876385f570f1501b1ee8f/tina-fey.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Karen Mizoguchi / People"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt95fee77ce05e8a2e/698876385f570f1501b1ee8f/tina-fey.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"\"Sisters\" New York Premiere","caption":"\"Sisters\" New York Premiere","creditText":"Brad Barket—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4155975/tina-fey-admits-she-was-the-mean-girl-in-high-school/","name":"Tina Fey Admits She Was the 'Mean Girl' in High School"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Sisters - Official Trailer","description":"Sisters - Official Trailer","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/3WVfOhjb/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-07-15T12:18:08.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/3WVfOhjb.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4155975/tina-fey-admits-she-was-the-mean-girl-in-high-school/","duration":"PT2M42S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4155975/tina-fey-admits-she-was-the-mean-girl-in-high-school/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```