Untangling the Boy Meets World Stars' Drama: Ben Savage Estrangement, Feuds and More
For the length of a Pod Meets World episode, Boy Meets World's Danielle Fishel and Maitland Ward obtained correct into a nerve-racking alternate, and Will Friedle spoke about his and Danielle's estrangement from Ben Savage.
As Mr. Feeny once said on Boy Meets World, “You don’t admire to be blood to be family.”
And that’s exactly the form of bond the solid of the '90s coming-of-age sequence fashioned.
“We’ve all identified every reasonably a few for goodbye at this point that they attain basically feel treasure family,” Ben Savage explained of starring on the sitcom because the titular boy, Cory Matthews, while performing at a 2019 Fan Expo Boston panel with castmates Danielle Fishel (Topanga Lawrence), Rider Sturdy (Shawn Hunter) Will Friedle (Eric Matthews), William Daniels (Mr. Feeny) and Bonnie Bartlett (Dean Lila Bolander). All the very best device by their seven-season bustle and within the years after, “We’ve considered every reasonably a few within the middle of our u.s.and downs,” added Ben, who additionally seemed within the Woman Meets World spinoff with Danielle, “and we spent so great time together that I attain feel treasure these are siblings and chums.”
Certainly, the castmates admire navigated reasonably a few lifestyles’s mountainous moments together. When Danielle married Jensen Karp in 2018, to illustrate, there became once a mini Boy Meets World reunion at her wedding. And after she became once identified with breast cancer within the summertime of 2024, she told E! News how Will and Rider were the first folk she told originate air of her family.
Fans loved witnessing the solid’s closeness, too. Whether it became once at a fan fest or in an Instagram yell of William placing out with his “accepted college students,” millennials’ hearts swooned when the actors came together.
“Immediately, no topic how great time it’s been since we’ve considered every reasonably a few,” Ben continued for the length of the Fan Expo Boston panel, “as quickly as we win support together, it’s treasure nothing’s changed.”
Nonetheless at this point, his extinct costars are soundless waiting on that subsequent grasp.
Danielle, Will and Rider admire said that Ben has ghosted them in most up-to-date years. And for the length of a Feb. 23 episode of the trio’s podcast Pod Meets World, Danielle had a nerve-racking alternate with Maitland Ward (who spent two seasons as Rachel) as they hashed out what Maitland known as “some pork.”
Nonetheless presumably there’s hope that any unresolved tension would possibly perhaps perhaps also additionally be wrapped up treasure a most widespread sequence finale. Then yet again, it would steal work.
“Over this a long time and this great time together in reasonably a few work atmospheres, you admire gotten fights, you admire gotten falling outs, you admire gotten moments the put you approach support together,” Danielle acknowledged at 90s Con Tampa in September 2023. “Nonetheless because we are always place support together—there were cases the put we’ve wanted put from every reasonably a few, the put we’ve taken lengthy distances.”
And yet, she continued, there's always put for a class reunion.
“Whenever you happen to in actuality commit to a relationship and you basically commit to this belief that we are always going to be in every reasonably a few's lives,” the actress continued, “the amount of enhance and charm and forgiveness and compassion and proper radiant of each and each reasonably a few that we now admire that we by no system would admire had had we written every reasonably a few off and said 'I’m completed with you, I don’t favor to leer you yet again.’ And so as that dedication to relationship is one thing that I get is exclusively a lesson for each person.”
And for those Boy Meets World followers who favor to see up on exactly what's been causing drama all these years, class is formally in session.
Maitland Ward & Danielle Fishel's Purple meat
While Boy Meets World wasn't a drama, a podcast alternate between costars Danielle Fishel (Topanga) and Maitland Ward (Rachel) had masses of it.
As the 2 explained on the Feb. 23, 2025 episode of Pod Meets World, the topic looked as if it would stem from a Facebook message Maitland despatched Danielle in 2013 in which she congratulated her on her engagement to now ex-husband Tim Belusko and Boy Meets World hump-off Woman Meets World. Then yet again, Danielle said she didn't peep the explain on the time. It wasn't till Maitland talked about the message within the clicking years later, she added, that Danielle went support to peep it—discovering it in a “graveyard” of DMs.
Danielle illustrious she then asked costar and podcast cohost Will Friedle (Eric) for Maitland's phone number to say regret but that Maitland didn't favor to chat privately at that point—asserting Maitland told Will she'd put the dialog for the podcast and “rock the stats.” Then yet again, Maitland said she didn't favor to keep up a correspondence to Danielle because she opinion her reach-out became once “disingenuous.”
Among her proof: The fact that Danielle had unfriended her on Facebook, one thing Danielle insisted she “by no system purposefully” did.
Nonetheless the pork didn't halt there. Maitland additionally said on the podcast that Danielle barely spoke to her after they reunited in 2014 for Woman Meets World, a field she stumbled on hurtful as she'd invited Danielle to her 2006 wedding and opinion they were chums.
While Danielle said she didn't admire an field with Maitland on the time, she pointed out they hadn't considered or spoken to every reasonably a few for the rationale that wedding. She additionally urged she didn't admire basically the most efficient trip working on Woman Meets World, but made it determined it wasn't one thing else in opposition to Maitland.
Then yet again, Maitland accused Danielle of being upset on the time over the attention Maitland became once stepping into the adult leisure industry. Danielle denied this, noting she posed for Maxim in 2014.
Maitland additionally accused Danielle, Will and their cohost Rider Sturdy (Shawn) of being unfavorable on Pod Meets World and hating costar Ben Savage (Cory) and Boy Meets World creator Michael Jacobs (though she later backpedaled and said she intended they simply had disagreements).
After all, the podcast cohosts made it determined they did no longer hate Ben or Michael and that they were simply sharing their experiences from the purpose to.
And when Maitland accused Danielle of “looking out to pass at” her for rankings, Danielle shot this down—claiming it became once Maitland who became once the utilize of this likelihood to win press.
While Danielle said she and Maitland don't would possibly perhaps perhaps also honest soundless be chums, she illustrious, “I don't hate Maitland, no longer even the slightest.”
The Traumatic Woman Meets World Space
Fourteen years after Boy Meets World ended, Ben and Danielle reprised their roles of Cory and Topanga on Woman Meets World—a comedy sequence that adopted their daughter Riley (Rowan Blanchard), her buddy Maya (Sabrina Wooden worker) and their lives at residence and college.
The point to ran on Disney Channel from 2014 to 2017. Then yet again, Danielle described it on her podcast as a “very, very complex space.”
“Let’s place it this form,” she said on a February 2025 episode of Pod Meets World. “The reminiscences we admire of the enjoyable space of Boy Meets World were no longer the reminiscences or the enjoyable space of Woman Meets World. It honest wasn’t. And I went into it, hoping it became once going to be. I went into it staring at for it to be, and it wasn’t. It became once a rather tumultuous space. It became once a local I felt very ostracized. I felt very criticized. I felt reasonably a few reasonably a few things being on that space.”
E! News reached out to Disney for commentary but did no longer hear support.
The Forged's Estrangement From Ben Savage
As Mr. Feeny once said, friendship, “is a proper gift, and it's given with no expectation and no gratitude is well-known—no longer between proper chums.”
And while Danielle, Rider and Will broken-all of the model down to be tight with Ben, they told Kind in June 2023 they hadn't heard from him in three years. As she place it, “He ghosted us.”
Explaining he has no belief why Ben gave them the quiet cure, Will shared he simply disappeared.
“I favor I knew why, to on the second,” he added. “We didn’t admire a fight. There’s no falling out. There became once no animosity. He honest aroused from sleep sooner or later, and determined I don’t favor this particular person in my lifestyles anymore. I in the end despatched a text asserting, 'I’ve identified you for 30 years, what’s going on?' I said, 'I’m gonna name you every single day till you explain me no longer to name you anymore.' That lasted about three weeks or a month, every single day.”
Danielle expressed her favor for them to sooner or later reconnect with Ben.
“Talking for myself, Ben and I would possibly perhaps perhaps also honest be estranged dazzling now and we would possibly perhaps perhaps also honest admire our complaints about every reasonably a few, but I will always treasure Ben and favor what’s most efficient for him,” she continued. “I don’t get here is the halt of our story—but time will explain.”
Ben hasn't yet, final quiet on the topic (he additionally didn't acknowledge to E! News' demand for commentary), but his extinct pals soundless defend out hope.
“Ben is one among well-known folk I’ve ever met in my lifestyles,” Will said in a February 2025 Pod Meets World episode, “and I will’t stand the real fact that he received’t keep up a correspondence to us.”
Will Friedle's Racially Insensitive Observation to Trina McGee
In January 2020, Trina McGee (Angela) spoke out about disrespect she experienced on Boy Meets World, at the side of being “known as Aunt Jemima on space.”
Later, she published Will made the commentary and that he apologized to her “22 years within the past and yet again days within the past in a in a three-page letter.”
“We talked extra on it and he acknowledged that he basically wasn’t trained sufficient in his early twenties to know he became once if truth be told offending me,” she wrote on Instagram in April 2020. “THIS SHOULD AND COULD BE A TEACHING MOMENT FOR ALL.”
Finally, Trina and Will moved forward.
“Will apologized to me and I forgave him, I then apologized to him for making the statements public because his comical story came out of honest no longer radiant, no longer viciousness and he forgave me,” she said. “That’s what chums attain.”
As Will recalled on Pod Meets World in 2022, he noticed Trina exit her dressing room in a “mountainous red headscarf” and “hooked up no cultural significance to that whatsoever.”
Pondering he became once teasing her treasure he did the remainder of the solid, he continued, he determined to “win enjoyable of her red hat.”
“That’s as some distance as my dumbass privileged solutions noticed it,” Will said. “So dazzling sooner than I walked on personally, I walked by and went 'treasure your syrup' and walked onto the gap thinking enhance, zing, honest obtained her for her hat.”
Trina told Will the comical story wasn't OK, and he became once “mortified,” noting the second changed his lifestyles.
“It’s in all probability you’ll perhaps perhaps’t honest throw things available within the market because you watched it’s comical and trudge away,” he said. “It’s in all probability you’ll perhaps perhaps perhaps properly be hurting folk.”
Trina McGee's Exit From the Screen
For the length of the podcast, Trina and her costars additionally space the account straight on her Boy Meets World departure.
Trina made her final look on the purpose to in a 2000 episode known as “Angela's Ashes.” Then yet again, she wasn't a segment of the sequence finale—a name she opinion became once made by the remainder of the solid.
“I became once told in roughly a peculiar, offhanded system by a well-known particular individual that you guys all went to Michael Jacobs and you said, ‘We don’t favor her within the final episode,'” she shared on the 2022 episode of Pod Meets World. “'She’s by some means taking our light’ became once the gist of it, and ‘we don’t favor her within the final episode.’”
This competitiveness, Trina continued, ache her for years. Then yet again, Danielle, Will and Rider insisted the rumored dialog “by no system came about,” with Danielle swearing on her childhood and Will swearing on his marriage.
“I'm sorry, you convey that's competitiveness. That's no longer competitiveness to me. That's sociopathy,” Will said after hearing the rumor. “This pisses me off.”
Trina believed them, and they were ready to win amends.
“Once it hits your mind and then you're quiet,” she said, “the silence grows and then your entire imagery of it becomes bigger than lifestyles and bigger than what it basically is.”
As Trina later added, “I treasure trusting you. It feels basically dazzling.”
Danielle Fishel & Trina McGee's Tension
Danielle has additionally apologized for how she treated Trina on the gap of Woman Meets World.
“I owed @realtrinamcgee an apology for being rude, wintry & some distance-off when she guest starred on GMW (her tweet referring to warm hellos being met with wintry blank stares became once about me),” Danielle wrote on X in June 2020. “Trina and I spoke over a month within the past and she gracefully current my apology.”
And additionally they talked about how they were pitted in opposition to every reasonably a few, particularly when it came to the rumors surrounding Trina's exit.
“By the time you came to Woman Meets World, you had had 14 or 15 years of believing we obtained together to defend you from being within the sequence finale of Boy Meets World and then the interaction you admire gotten with me would possibly maybe well be very wintry,” Danielle said on the 2022 episode of Pod Meets World. “How would possibly perhaps perhaps you no longer trudge away thinking, ‘She hates me. She’s after me. We’re always in competition. We can always be in competition.'”
After the 2 talked it out privately, Danielle continued, they wished they’d honest had a dialog sooner.
“We would possibly perhaps perhaps were there for every reasonably a few the model we’ve been there for by extra than one hardships over the final several years,” she added. “So that, for me, is the very best lesson and the significance of talking and being attractive to dig deep for a comparable cause, which is growing and changing into greater folk and doing greater.”
Danielle Fishel's Tearful Discussion With Creator Michael Jacobs
After the actress who within the origin performed Topanga became once let scuttle and Danielle became once solid, she did her first producer bustle-by and prepped for Michael's critique.
“Michael starts off the notes by asserting, 'Danielle, I'm going to give you your notes all in one time on the halt, and I'm going to give each person else their notes now,'” she recalled on Pod Meets World in 2022. “'Because if I made each person sit down here by all of the notes I basically admire for you, we would all be here for hours and nobody would ever win to pass residence.'”
Danielle said this became once completed in front of each person and that she teared up. She illustrious Michael went by every line with her and her mom and told them what Danielle desired to interchange, treasure speaking extra slowly. As she remembers him asserting, “'All I do know is within the event you don't approach support the following day doing this entirely in yet every other device, you are additionally no longer going to be here,' referencing the girl I had replaced.”
Danielle said she and her mom rehearsed till 3 or 4 a.m. to win her traces dazzling, which she said intended “making Michael pleased.”
After Danielle did the community bustle-by the subsequent day, she said, Michael gave her a standing ovation.
For his segment, Michael said he became once “sorry to hear those were her solutions” and that “there became once extra” to the story.
“She feels that her job became once threatened, I have confidence about,” he said on a 2023 episode of Reel Talker. “It became once, nevertheless it wasn't by me. I became once looking out to place it aside, which we did. She saved it.”
Michael added he “always believed in her” and soundless does.
Will Friedle & Rider Sturdy's Past Make stronger of Brian Peck in Drake Bell Case
In the 2024 doc Quiet on Space: The Darkish Aspect of Youngsters TV, it became once published that Will and Rider were amongst several stars who wrote letters of give a enhance to for dialogue coach Brian Peck.
Brian became once arrested in 2003 and charged with “lewd acts with a diminutive bit one,” with a LAPD delivery noting “the minor’s family reported that Peck had molested the diminutive one.” In the doc, Drake Bell shared he became once the minor.
In step with a case abstract got by NBC News, Brian pleaded no contest and became once convicted of “lewd or lascivious acts” and oral copulation of a minor. He became once sentenced to 16 months in penal advanced.
In an episode of Pod Meets World, Will said Brian became once “all of a sudden spinning it to the put it wasn’t his fault” but “the fault of his victim.” And while Rider said Brian “admitted to one thing,” he illustrious he and Will didn't know the extent of the crimes for which Brian became once convicted.
Will and Rider additionally seemed in court to give a enhance to Brian.
“We’re sitting in that court on the immoral facet of all the pieces—for positive having no belief of this—crammed with diminutive one actors to the purpose the put the victim’s mom turned and said, 'Impress on the total illustrious folk you introduced with you and it doesn’t exchange what you maybe did to my kid,'” Will recalled. “And I honest sat there looking out to die the put it became once treasure, 'What the hell am I doing here?'”
Drake has since spoken to Will and Rider and forgiven them. As Will shared in one other podcast episode, Drake told him, “'Before you convey a discover, I favor you to know I treasure you and I forgive you.'”
Source credit : eonline.com
