Tina Fey Knows She “Screwed Up” That ‘SNL’ Charlottesville “Sheetcaking” Sketch

Tina Fey has never been one to hold back with her political comedy, and it’s largely served her well; with biting impressions of people like Sarah Palin and plenty of Trump teasing, she’s offered us plenty of laughs during these trying times. When she appeared on Saturday Night Live some eight months ago to react to the violent events that took place in Charlottesville, however, the response was not quite as jovial as she intended.

During a Weekend Update: Summer Edition segment, Fey denounced the white supremacists in Charlottesville and President Trump’s response, which seemed like an appropriate response, but things got sticky when she made a suggestion for how we should protest going forward. Her solution? Stress-eating sheet cake, rather than “participating in screaming matches” at the alt-right rallies. While some praised her approach, many criticized her for this “naive” response rooted in “privilege” – and it turns out Fey hasn’t stopped thinking about it, either.

Chatting with David Letterman on the latest installment of My Next Guest… on Netflix, Fey admitted that there were things she wished she could change about the sketch. After commenting that “talking to anyone, anywhere in 2018 is just landmine hopscotch,” she recalled how the Charlottesville bit came to be. “They called me up, and it was right after Charlottesville, and they said, ‘well, you went to UVA. Do you wanna say something?’,” said Fey. “And every time I’ve ever done some of those kinda Update things, I always step in manure…”

After Letterman told her he thought the execution was “perfect”, Fey countered him. “It turns out it was not, sir.”

“..You try your best, try to have your eyes open, try to be so mindful, but it’s also a fast-moving train, and so the piece, you know, I felt like – I felt like a gymnast who did, like, a very solid routine and broke her ankle on the landing. Because it’s literally within the last, I think, two or three sentences of the piece that I chunked it, and I screwed up, and the implication was that I was telling people to give up and not be active and to not fight. That was not my intention, you know, obviously…

…The sentence, if I had a time machine… and I could go back, and you don’t at SNL, you don’t. I would end the piece by saying — I would say to people, ‘fight them in every way except the way that they want.”

Fey went on to admit that it was painful, because she’d only wanted to help. While she wasn’t into the “culture of apology”, she promised to “hear” her critics and “learn” from her mistakes – and there’s no way she’s going to stop trying.

Stream My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman on Netflix