Danielle Fishel may have many fond memories of her time on Boy Meets World, but returning for the show’s spinoff, Girl Meets World, was an entirely different — and “difficult” — experience.
After portraying the role of Topanga for seven seasons on the ABC ‘90s hit, Fishel, 43, returned for the Disney Channel revival from 2014 to 2017.
“It was a very, very difficult set,” the actress recalled in the Monday, February 23 episode of her “Pod Meets World” podcast, which she cohosts alongside her former Boy Meets World costars Rider Strong and Will Friedle.
“Let’s put it this way: The memories we have of the fun set of Boy Meets World were not the memories [from the] set of Girl Meets World,” she continued. “It just wasn’t. And I went into it hoping it was going to be. I went into it expecting it to be. And it wasn’t. It was a rather tumultuous place. It was a place I felt very ostracized. I felt very criticized. I felt a lot of different things being on that set.”
Fishel added: “That was not the set of Danielle being carefree and running around shaking hands and kissing babies.”
Girl Meets World offered a fresh, girl-centric update on the original series, centering on the life of 12-year-old Riley Matthews (Rowan Blanchard), the daughter of Topanga and lifetime love Cory (Ben Savage).
Fishel discussed her feelings about Girls Meets World during a heated argument with Maitland Ward — who portrayed Rachel on seasons 6 and 7 of BMW — and appeared as a guest on Monday’s “Pod Meets World.” Ward, 48, had previously accused Fishel of holding a grudge against her for years since the first series ended in 2000.
The tense exchange kicked off when Fishel asked Ward, “Do you hate us?” Ward replied, “No, I do not hate you. I think that you hate me because you wouldn’t speak to me on Girl Meets World and that was hurtful.”
Ward’s claim seemingly took Fishel by surprise.
“I wouldn’t speak to you? I did talk to you,” she recalled to Ward, who claimed that Fishel “didn’t like the fact” that she was “getting a lot of attention at that time.”
“Boy Meets World” cast. YouTube
Fishel appeared to cast off Ward’s recollection as a misunderstanding, especially given how Fishel was feeling at the time.
She said that “absolutely, in every experience we have had on the show, where people have finally talked about things that have never been talked about in the 20 or 30 years since they’ve happened. Or 10 or 20 years since they’ve happened. When it then comes up, every single time there’s a reveal, which is like, ‘Oh, you know what? I made this a personal thing.’”
She told Ward, “I’m sorry that you thought it was about you.”
Ward also claimed during the episode there is a “divide” between those involved in the two shows because Fishel, along with Strong and Friedle, “hate Ben [Savage] and you guys hate [series creator] Michael [Jacobs].”
The hosts denied hating either, with Friedle — who played Savage’s brother, Eric — saying his onscreen sibling was “one of the most important people I’ve ever met in my life, and I can’t stand the fact that he won’t speak to us. And that’s what it is: He won’t speak to us.” Friedle alleged “in the middle of a conversation with Ben, he just bailed on me.”
Fishel, meanwhile, defended stories she has previously said on the podcast that involve Jacobs as her boss, claiming they are not “negative’ but simply stories about her past experience.
“The same way you wrote your book about your experiences doesn’t mean that they’re negative. They’re just experiences,” Fishel told Ward. “So you don’t listen to the podcast regularly, but your overall opinion of it is that we are negative about Michael and Ben and the show.”
Strong, for his part, added, “If I’m talking about Michael yelling at me, that’s my experience. I was yelled at. I watched him do things. I can describe that, that’s the truth.”
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