Tina Fey Says Being in Her 50s Is Like ‘Reverse Puberty’: ‘Your Body Starts to Change in Disgusting New Ways’
Tina Fey Says Being in Her 50s Is Like ‘Reverse Puberty’: ‘Your Body Starts to Change in Disgusting New Ways’
Kimberlee SpeakmanThu, June 4, 2026 at 8:49 PM UTC
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Tina Fey attends SAG-AFTRA event in New York City on June 02, 2026.Credit: Dominik Bindl/Getty -
Tina Fey says aging into her 50s feels like "reverse puberty" with surprising changes to her body, including "papery" skin
Fey's experiences and those of her fellow writers, who are around the same age, helped inspire jokes in her show The Four Seasons
She previously shared how growing older has affected how she chooses which events to go to and says she stays active by keeping busy
Tina Fey is getting candid about aging.
The 30 Rock alum, 56, revealed in an interview with Today published on Thursday, June 4, that she didn't fully understand what it meant to age into her 50s until she actually did it — and it came with a few surprises.
"I feel like it's a reverse puberty in a way. It's like your body starts to change and be disgusting in new ways," Fey told the outlet with a laugh.
"When you're 12 or 13, you're like, 'Why am I so oily?' And now you're like, 'Why am I so papery?' " she added.
Tina Fey attends the 2026 Netflix Upfront in New York City on May 13, 2026.Credit: Jamie McCarthy/Getty for Netflix
The actress shared that her own personal experiences — and those of her fellow writers on her show The Four Seasons — helped inspire the writing for it. (She even had a joke in the series about Will Forte's character being married to a middle-aged woman with dry skin.)
She noted that since the writers were "all pretty much the same age," they went through similar things and could understand where each other was coming from.
"Almost all of us have known each other a super long time, and so all the writers are really good about sharing their own things," Fey said. "Then sometimes our spouses are like, 'Is that me?' And then we'll usually just be like, 'No, no.' We'll just lie and say, 'That's so and so.' "
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The actress, who turned 56 on May 18, has also been candid in the past about how getting older has impacted the things she chooses to do — especially at night. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, she revealed that she attempted to stay up late to celebrate Saturday Night Live's 50th anniversary, to no avail.
"I've never been able to get over the fact that I left the 40th afterparty before Prince's surprise set," she told the outlet in April 2025.
"So the whole week leading up to the 50th, I drank water, I went to bed early, I saved it all up," she continued. "But when I got to the afterparty, I couldn't find any of my friends, and obviously there was no chance of Prince, so I thought, 'Actually, I'm out.' "
Tina Fey attends the Los Angeles premiere of Netflix's 'The Four Seasons' in L.A. in May 2026.Credit: Brianna Bryson/FilmMagic
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Fey also shared that keeping busy has been her key to staving off ending up "like a little granny apple head," especially while juggling kids and caring for a parent.
"This sandwich generation stuff, having your kids and an aging parent in the same house, it's wonderful … but it also really takes a lot out of you," Fey previously told The Hollywood Reporter.
"My mom passed away in the summer, my older daughter went to college in August and my husband [Richmond is also a producer and director] and I went to work on The Four Seasons in the fall. That kept me in the world. It saved me from just shrinking up like a little granny apple head," she added.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
