Inside The Years-Long Drama Between The Boy Meets World Cast

Juggling the trials and tribulations of teenagehood, "Boy Meets World" star Cory Matthews (Ben Savage) had a little help from his friends. Actors Danielle Fishel, Will Friedle, and Rider Strong all played opposite of Savage in the hit '90s sitcom, but from what they've publicly shared about the cast's bond, their relationship with their co-star is nothing like the hopeful ending we were provided at the series finale. 

The emotional goodbye between the friends and their high school principal, Mr. Feeny, was as heart-warming in real life as it was on screen. "It's very strange to be with the same people every day for seven years and then one Thursday night, you wake up Friday morning and it's over," Friedle told Us Weekly in 2022. "And that's it. It was just over." The scene was one grueling take — Fishel revealed that her tears weren't just the product of skillful acting. The series ending represented a whole new chapter for the "Boy Meets World" cast. 

What they didn't know was that their relationships with each other would change completely. Savage and Fishel reprised their roles as a husband and wife duo in the 2014 Disney spinoff "Girl Meets World," with Friedle and Strong making episode appearances. But for the most part, their friendships drifted as the years went by. Fishel, Friedle, and Strong, who front the rewatch podcast "Pod Meets World," have spilled all of the drama between cast members throughout the years. 

While toying with the idea of a "Boy Meets World" podcast, which officially debuted in 2022, the trio of hosts said that Ben Savage would've been an obvious cast member to include. The four main characters would've had a coveted reunion if it wasn't for Savage's disinterest. "He was very adamant that it was not for him," Danielle Fishel told Variety in 2023. Not only did their former co-star reject their invitation to host "Pod Meets World," but they say that Savage disappeared from their lives altogether.

"He just kind of disappeared from our lives," the "Girl Meets World" matriarch said. Fishel was reportedly very close with Savage, who was an especially supportive friend when she gave birth prematurely in 2019. Unlike their happy syndicated ending, their friendship — as well as the rest of the cast's friendship with Savage — suddenly ended. "He ghosted us," said Fishel. 

According to Maitland Ward, who played Rachel McGuire on the show, the lost connection with Savage isn't one-sided. "There's a divide too because you guys hate Ben," she alleged on a February 2025 episode of "Pod Meets World." The hosts immediately denied hating Savage — Friedle specifically confessed his hurt feelings over the end of his friendship with Savage.

Will Friedle explained his perspective on the no-contact situation with his on-screen brother, Ben Savage during the "Pod Meets World" episode with Maitland Ward. "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," he said. Friedle even offered Ward receipts, saying, "I can show you the last three years, literally, of messages. And in the middle of a conversation with Ben, he just bailed on me." 

Friedle spoke on the matter in the Variety interview, admitting that the loss of their friendship is a "sore subject." "He disappeared — I wish I knew why, to this day," Friedle said. "We didn't have a fight. There's no falling out. There was no animosity. He just woke up one day and decided, 'I don't want this person in my life anymore.'" The pair were very close while playing opposite each other on the sitcom, which ran from 1993 to 2000. Thus, it was quite a shock to Friedle when Savage ceased all contact. 

"I finally sent a text saying, 'I've known you for 30 years, what's going on?'" When Savage didn't respond, Friedle insisted he would call him every day until he answered or asked him to stop calling. "I tried and tried and tried for months," Friedle told the outlet, "until finally, my wife was like, 'Why are you doing this to yourself? He obviously doesn't want you in his life.'"

Will Friedle may never know why he and Ben Savage aren't the brothers they used to be, but his drama with Trina McGee is a tad more transparent. In January 2020, McGee, who played Angela Moore on "Boy Meets World," revealed on X, formerly Twitter, that she was likened to Aunt Jemima on the set of "Boy Meets World." It was later confirmed that it was Friedle who had said it. She told Yahoo Entertainment that although he apologized — acknowledging that he likely didn't understand the significant offense of that comment — she felt that her self-esteem was often bulldozed on set.

McGee later addressed the on-set moment on Instagram in April 2020, telling her followers, "FOR THE RECORD: WILL FRIEDLE the man responsible for AuntJemimagate, apologized to me 22 years ago and again days ago in a in a three-page letter. We talked more on it and he acknowledged that he really wasn't educated enough in his early twenties to know he was truly offending me [sic]." When McGee guest appeared on a September 2022 episode of the podcast, Friedle unearthed the controversy once again. "In my head, I attached no cultural significance to that whatsoever," he told McGee, adding that her calling attention to it "literally changed my life" for the better.

In the same February 2025 "Pod Meets World" episode where Danielle Fishel, Rider Strong, and Will Friedle denied hating Ben Savage, Fishel confronted "Boy Meets World" alum Maitland Ward in the exact same manner. "Maybe a more broad, general question for you is: Do you hate us?" Fishel bluntly asked Ward, who said she didn't. "I think you hate me because you wouldn't speak to me on — when we would go to 'Girl Meets World' and everything, and that was hurtful," Ward said. The actors rehashed their unresolved beef, concluding that it was based on miscommunication.

Fishel then inquired about Ward's frequent interviews about her history with the cast in the media. "It seems as though every time we've been in the news, shortly thereafter, there's an interview with you on TMZ sharing your opinion on the subject," she said. Ward responded: "They want to know."

After appearing on the podcast, Ward told the New York Post that she felt Fishel orchestrated the whole confrontation. "What's really hurtful about the situation is—maybe she was mad or whatever, and she wanted to bring it up like that — but Will had presented this show to me before like it was going to be so much fun," Ward said, adding that she was not prepared for the end of the episode. "I thought the show was winding down at that point. And I think she wanted to catch me off guard. She wanted to try to rattle me, and she did. I didn't expect it."

Rider Strong, Will Friedle, and Danielle Fishel have not only been vocal about their heated history with the cast; the "Pod Meets World" trio admitted to having problems with the show's creator, Michael Jacobs. In a July 2022 episode of the podcast, Fishel revealed how she was almost fired in her first week. "Michael starts off the notes by saying, 'Danielle, I'm going to have to give you your notes all in one time at the end. And I'm going to give everyone else their notes now, because if I made everyone sit here through all of the notes I have for you, we would all be here for hours and no one would ever get to go home." Fishel, who was 12 years old at the time, welled up with tears as Jacobs criticized every one of her lines. "I'm sweating profusely now as we talk about it," she said on the podcast.

Rider Strong also had an issue with Jacobs, claiming in an October 2022 podcast episode that the show's creator was "incredibly irresponsible" when discussing the theme of sex on the show. He specifically mentioned his concerns to Jacobs while shooting Season 5's "Prom-ises, Prom-ises," in which Topanga and Cory consider having sex for the first time. When he approached Jacobs with the idea of mentioning safe sex practices in the episode, Strong said, "He completely blew me off and told me it was a ridiculous thing to worry about and that we don't even need to discuss it."