Tina Fey cops to being a mean girl

Watching “Mean Girls” and the rest of Tina Fey’s career — especially “30 Rock” — you’d think she became such an expert in mean girl behavior by being on the receiving end of their terribleness. You would be wrong. It turns out that Fey herself was totes a mean girl. Can you believe it?

“I admit it openly,” she tells the Edit. “That was a disease that had to be conquered. 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. Saying something terrible about someone else does not actually level the playing field. 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.”

This is so confusing, given Fey’s whole Queen of the Underdogs status. I thought we had some nerd solidarity going, man. Next you’ll tell me Carson Daly didn’t really care what music videos I wanted to see all those years.

Follow Ned Ehrbar on Twitter: @nedrick