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Tina Fey’s Teen Daughters Stopped Their Mom From Making a Disastrous Change to the New Mean Girls

Rebecca Rakowitz
3 min read

Tina Fey was very close to being a regular mom — not a cool mom — by nearly flubbing a major plot point for the new Mean Girls. Much to the delight of fans worldwide, the brilliant creator of the 2004 classic decided to have a second go of it, making a second Mean Girls for the next generations of Plastics, Cady Herons, and girls who “don’t even go here.”

But she almost made a disastrous mistake. We’re talking worse than not wearing pink on Wednesday! Luckily, her t(w)een daughters Alice, 18 and Penelope, 12, stepped in to help. Fey decided to get their input on the film to bring some authenticity to the movie. After all, they’re likely in the thick of mean girl drama.

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“Sometimes I would run things by the kids,” Fey told Entertainment Tonight. “Like casting, or you know, like [asking], ‘Should the burn book stay a book, or should it be a private Instagram account?’ And they’re like, ‘No, it’s a book, it’s a book.'”

She almost made the burn book an Instagram account?! Blasphemy! Respectfully, Tina, you know what we have to say to that: “Boo, you whore!”

The infamous scrapbook dissing all the girls in school is. a. book. Thank god for Fey’s daughters! Four [treats] for you, Alice and Penelope! You go, Alice and Penelope!

Tina Fey and Lindsay Lohan at the premiere of "Mean Girls" held at AMC Lincoln Square on January 8, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty Images)
Tina Fey and Lindsay Lohan (Photo by Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty Images)

Penelope famously crashed her Zoom appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers in 2020. The then-8-year-old entered the room looking like a “colonial lady” in her pioneer dress. “We’re taping a television program now, do you need something?” Fey asked her youngest.

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Penelope enters the frame, stares at the screen, and instead of responding, puts an L-shaped hand on her forehead. The universal sign for “loser.”

“You’re calling me a … loser?” the 30 Rock actor asks her daughter. Penelope points at her mom, nods, and runs away giggling. “She’s calling us losers!” Fey tells Meyers.

Oof. Sounds like the former Weekend Update hosts wouldn’t be allowed to sit with Penelope.

People caught up with Lindsay Lohan, star of the OG Mean Girls on the red carpet. The outlet asked if she felt like a “cool mom” — like Amy Poehler’s character in the film — now that she welcomed a son Luai with husband Bader Shammas.

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“I hope so,” she joked.

Lohan officially entered the “mom club” with co-stars Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried, and Lacey Chabert.

Yes, you’re that old. Cady and The Plastics are all moms. It has been 20 years, after all. We’re just glad that their fictional gym coach’s advice did not turn out to be true for them, or Fey:

“Don’t have sex. Because you will get pregnant, and die. Don’t have sex in the missionary position, don’t have sex standing up, just … don’t do it.”

 

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