The Sisters star reveals she was the alpha Plastic during her pre-fame days telling Net-a-Porter's The Edit, "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."
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."