Newsgasm: Rachel Dratch’s ugly lessons at 30 Rock

The indiginities don’t seem to end for poor SNL alum Rachel Dratch, who was starring in– and then not starring in– her pal Tina Fey’s NBC sitcom 30 Rock. But at least she’s a good sport about it.

“Whatever. I’m over it,” she says. Well, sort of…

Rachel was set to be featured as Jenna deCarlo, the star of the show-within-a-show– that is, until August, when bossman Lorne Michaels announced the “role has been scrapped and Dratch will play an assortment of different characters throughout the season.” Then he announced a day later that the Jenna deCarlo lived, only to be played by willowy blonde beauty Jane Krakowski.

Most everyone took it for granted that Rachel lost the gig because she’s not, well, purty enough for prime time. Rachel reveals how they let her down as easily as possible:

“They told me that at first they wanted to have more comedy sketches in the show. Then they decided they weren’t going to focus on the sketches, so they needed more of a sitcom actress, as opposed to a character actress,” she tells New York magazine.

“Ha! I’m phrasing this all very nicely. That’s the party line, at least–it’s what I can tell my parents!”

There was more bad news ahead. Rachel says, “When Tina told me I was going to play different characters each show, I was actually psyched about it, because it sounded really unique.”

Then she found out she wasn’t exactly going to be in every episode. She’s appearing in six.

“I was kind of like, Why do I only have six? But then I decided I shouldn’t open my trap too much, so I just left it at that.”

Rachel can take heart. 30 Rock didn’t exactly burn up the ratings in its big premiere. With only 8.1 million viewers, six episodes might be a stretch.

–Tabloid Baby