As adults, most of us have probably dealt with one form of namecalling or another over the years, but very, very few of us are head writers on Saturday Night Live being called a “cunt” by a coworker. That’s what happened to Tina Fey, though, back in her early SNL days, and she revealed to Howard Stern that it was none other than Colin Quinn that dropped the C-bomb on her.
And it wasn’t even to her face or behind her back, either. It was through a voicemail message, which is probably the most passive-aggressive way of insulting someone. It’s been a while – Quinn left SNL in 2000, the same year that Fey joined the cast – but Fey still recalls her theory on why it happened.
I was trying to help him with a show he was working on and I think his anxiety about the writing of the show spilled over. ‘Cause it was very random…Usually if someone will call you that, you’re like, ‘I know what I did.’
Colin Quinn, a comic whose pointed rage I often find quite amusing, is the kind of person who probably calls a mailbox a cunt if the letter he’s waiting for isn’t inside. And Fey isn’t above using the aggressive word herself, as she also told Stern she called a London woman that because the woman was being rude. Still, it’s always going to be harsher when it’s a man calling a woman that, especially someone in high authority.
There are no grudges held over this incident, though. Fey says that she and Quinn made up at the SNL 40 anniversary special, and she’d even asked him several times to appear on 30 Rock, although he refused each time. Yet he appeared on Girls, because okay then.
Quinn got some attention over this after Fey’s interview was heard by the masses, and he took to Twitter to say his thing.
If anyone else has any other recordings of Colin Quinn saying terrible things, let us know. Otherwise, give a listen to the full clip from The Howard Stern Show below.
You’ll be able to see Fey this weekend, teaming up with her former Saturday Night Live co-star Amy Poehler for the comedy Sisters, which will definitely win out the weekend’s box office, since nobody cares about that old Star Wars thing, right?
