Danielle Fishel 'grills' costar on 'Boy Meets World' podcast: 'Do you hate us?'

USA Today

26-02-2025

Danielle Fishel 'grills' costar on 'Boy Meets World' podcast: 'Do you hate us?'
Reunions don't always have happy endings, and some can get downright heated, as was the case with "Boy Meets World" costars Danielle Fishel and Maitland Ward.
Ward caught up with Fishel and fellow "Boy Meets World" alums Will Friedle and Rider Strong on a recent episode of "The Pod Meets World" podcast, where fans can "relive your (their) first crush, first kiss, favorite moments and all the life lessons with Topanga, Eric and Shawn."
The episode, released Sunday, featured Ward, best known for playing Rachel McGuire, the "beloved" roommate seen in seasons six and seven of "Boy Meets World" and a brief stint on the spin-off show "Girl Meets World." Ward also opened up on the podcast about her "spicy" career as an adult film star.
But the tone of the conversation shifted about an hour in when Fishel asked, "Do you hate us?"
"No, I do not hate you," Ward replied. "I think that you hate me because you wouldn't speak to me on 'Girl Meets World,' and that was hurtful." The two went back and forth about their relationship through the years for a while, in an attempt to piece together how, when and why they lost touch.
"I said to Will, 'Will you please ask Maitland if I could have her phone number so that I could apologize to her,'" Fishel said. "And you wrote back to Will, 'No, let's just save it for the podcast. It'll be great for the ratings,'" adding that Ward said it would "rock the stats."
At the time in 2022, Ward thought she would be asked to appear on the podcast soon, not years later. Ward said she felt Fishel asking to talk was "disingenuous," especially after she was ignored on set when she thought they were friends.
Representatives for Fishel did not immediately respond to USA TODAY's request for comment.
Maitland Ward felt 'awful' after podcast appearance
Ward felt "awful" and "sad" after the podcast, telling USA TODAY in a Tuesday interview that she "didn't want us to do that."
"When I say I wanted to 'rock the stats' and stuff, I meant start a conversation. I wasn't going to attack her and have a huge argument on set. I mean, just like talk things out," Ward said, "And again, being so long later, I just did not expect it. ...I was like in shock that she was doing this right then and that they were agreeing."
Ward felt especially betrayed by Friedle, who she says was her friend and had been supportive of her throughout the years.
"The fact that he presented her this text, knew she was going to do this and presented me the show the time saying, 'Oh, it's going to be great. We want to have you on, we're so excited,'" Ward said. "I felt like it was going to be a friendly situation. There was no talk about drama or starting anything, so I feel like that was a betrayal in many ways."
Despite her experience on the show, Ward told USA TODAY she would consider making another appearance in the future to hash things out.
"I am open to it, especially if it can be a thing where we do come together and talk real ... "I think it could be a real opportunity for everyone to talk it out, not a combative way, but to come together in a more positive way," Ward said. "I wish that's how it would have turned out."
'Girl Meets World' was a 'very, very difficult set,' Fishel says
Ward said she was "very, genuinely confused" by Fishel's cold shoulder, especially because she remembered Friedle and Strong greeting her warmly after years of no contact.
"You had an attitude about it. There was some beef between us, and I didn't get it," Ward said of her time on the spinoff. "Maybe, I picked up on the wrong signals, but there definitely was some sort of weirdness there...I didn't know if you thought that I was trying to steal attention or something."
Fishel said she didn't remember an issue between them, but that the "Girl Meets World" set was a "very, very difficult set."
"Let's just put it this way, the memories we have of 'Boy Meets World' were not the memories or fun set of 'Girl Meets World,'" Fishel said. "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."
Ward thought, at that moment in time, that Fishel was jealous of her. "Listen, I mean you didn't like the fact that I was getting a lot of attention at that time and going off in my own space and taking away like that attention," she said.
It seemed as though the argument had ended until Fishel brought up the fact that Ward had made some negative statements about them and about the show to the press, specifically to TMZ. Ward told her photographers seek her out when Fishel asked how the interviews happened.
"Are you trying to accuse me of using you or are you trying to accuse me of something?... It's an awfully big concern for you right now," Ward said. "I think there's a divide too because you guys hate Ben (Savage), and you guys hate Michael (Jacobs)."
Savage is best known for portraying Cory Matthews in "Boy Meets World," and Jacobs is the creator of the show.
"Ben is 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," Friedle said. Friedle and Strong revealed in a 2023 interview with Variety that Savage no longer speaks to them.
Ward said while she doesn't listen to the podcast regularly, she does think there was "a lot of negative stuff" that came out of the podcast.
"Be honest about this. You're trying to go at me now to get the ratings because you know people will be interested," Ward says. Fishel responds by saying she was "not the one who wanted to go for ratings."
"I'm the one who texted Will to ask for your phone number so that like adults, we could have a conversation off the air. When you said, 'rock that stats,' I realized got it," Fishel said. "This isn't someone who is seeing an opportunity to again, use this opportunity to get into the ratings...This is what you asked for."
'Pod Meets World' will 'gladly have' Maitland Ward back
The conversation eventually simmered down and the episode concluded with everyone, including Ward, cracking jokes about her career and teasing the possibility of having her back on the podcast in the future.
Fishel said they will "gladly have her back" on the podcast to talk about the Prank Wars episode when they get around to it, or any other episode they feel we "have to talk to Maitland about this."
"Does that mean that Maitland and I need to have each other's numbers and send each other texts? Absolutely not. We don't need that and that's okay," Fishel said.
Fishel harbors no hate, or resentment towards Ward, in fact she hopes she has the "best, most greatest, most fantastical, wonderful life."