Tina Fey has finally answered a question long left unanswered, regarding the scar visible on her left cheek, with help from her husband.

“30 Rock” star Tina Fey has long avoided revealing the story behind the scar on her left cheek, offering such elusive answers as wishing to protect her parents from a troubling memory.

In an interview with Vanity Fair for its January issue though, Fey finally broke the taboo and told the story, with help from her husband of seven years, Jeff Richmond. It was in fact Richmond who revealed that when Fey was 5 years old, a stranger came up to her and slashed her face.

She was in the front yard of her house in Upper Darby, Pa., when the man attacked her. The little girl did not realize at the time what had happened, thinking someone had “marked her with a pen,” Richmond added.

Fey added she does not like talking about this incident because she feels it is impossible to bring up the subject without “somehow seemingly exploiting it and glorifying it.” In typical humorous manner, she added her therapist has warned her she may go crazy once her daughter turns 5.

Fey, 38, and Richmond, 48, who composes the music for “30 Rock,” are parents to 3-year-old Alice. The television star muses in the interview that she made an effort to not allow the violent incident to affect her childhood, being “a very confident little kid.” It was only when she saw herself on camera that she was reminded of this episode from her past, she says.

Richmond has a somewhat different view of the incident, confessing that the scar fascinates him because, no matter its origin, it shows its owner has been through something.

Tina Fey has won five Emmys, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award for her work on “Saturday Night Live” and “30 Rock” and shot to stardom this fall with her hilarious yet acid impersonations of Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

Vanity Fair’s January issue hits newsstands nationwide on December 9.