"Boy Meets World" Star Will Friedle Just Detailed Witnessing Inappropriate Behavior On The "Girl Meets World" Set
To this day, Boy Meets World is still one of the most beloved shows. The series ran from 1993 to 2000 and aired 158 episodes.
Over the course of seven seasons, many iconic TV moments were born from characters like Mr. Feeny (William Daniels), Eric (Will Friedle), Cory (Ben Savage), Topanga (Danielle Fishel), and Shawn (Rider Strong). Heck, people still talk about the closing minutes of the series as one of the best TV moments of all time.
Then, 14 years after the series ended, a new spinoff began on Disney Channel called Girl Meets World, which centered on Cory and Topanga's daughter Riley (Rowan Blanchard) as she navigates school, friends, and growing up.
And now, it's been almost exactly 30 years since Boy Meets World premiered on ABC, and recently Will, Rider, and Danielle have come together to re-explore their time on the hit sitcom with their podcast, Pod Meets World.
Like most rewatch podcasts, their show goes episode by episode as they discuss what it was like filming the series, what was happening behind the scenes, and much more. Notably, they have opened up about working with the show's creator Michael Jacobs and some of the mistreatment they faced behind the scenes.
In one episode, Danielle talked about how on her first day on the series, she was humiliated on set and Jacobs threatened to fire her, when she was only 12 years old.
Will, Danielle, and Rider said they didn't realize how bad the behind-the-scenes behavior was until they returned for Girl Meets World in 2014, where Danielle was a series regular and directed episodes, while Will and Rider appeared as guest stars and wrote and directed episodes, respectively.
In a new interview with Variety, the trio talked about their podcast and dove deeper into the behavior they witnessed behind the scenes of Girl Meets World, in particular the "troubling power dynamics at play within the show" and how it made them look at their own experiences on Boy Meets World from a new perspective.
Girl Meets World notably marked Danielle's first sitcom since Boy Meets World ended, and she said she immediately realized how inappropriate some of the behavior on set was.
"There’s a lot to be said for taking some normal workplace environment rules to Hollywood. Maybe, if this would never fly in any other professional environment, maybe some of those professional rules should apply on our sets. Maybe the things that would happen in your accountant’s office where someone would then call HR and it would come to an end, maybe we should participate in those things here," Danielle said.
She continued, telling Variety, "I think I was one of the people on that set who oftentimes would say, 'Hi, what are we doing here? This is weird. And I know it’s normal for what we do, but I don’t think it should be normal and I think we should stop this from happening.'"
She added that by doing this, she was often seen as "the problem."
In a recent episode of Pod Meets World, Danielle, Will, and Rider talked about boundaries being crossed on set, and Will noted that he'd seen it happen on Girl Meets World.
Will said, "I got to come in and occasionally look at the entire thing that was happening. You saw a lot of those traits, where it was, you’d walk in and somebody 13 or 14 would be sitting on somebody's lap who's 35. There’s nothing overtly sexual about it, but it's still inappropriate."
He continued, saying, "It’s completely on the adults. It’s not on the 13-year-old girl to say, 'Wow, I shouldn’t run up and jump on somebody’s lap because that’s inappropriate.' It’s on the man to go, 'No, no, no — I like you a lot but why don’t you sit over there and we’ll have a conversation. It’s just not appropriate.' You don’t see that nearly as much as you should. It was very strange."
While working on Girl Meets World, the trio said they began to realize how inappropriate the behavior they experienced on Boy Meets World was. On the podcast, they've talked about regularly being around conversations from grown adults where they talked about "how hot the guest stars are" and how the women's "skirts weren't short enough."
Danielle has also talked at length on the podcast about being sexualized on set as a young child actor.
While the trio have nothing but wonderful things to say about Rowan, Sabrina Carpenter, and Peyton Meyer, who lead the series, they explained that their experiences on Girl Meets World were "hindered by the fact it was the cast and crew returning from Boy Meets World."
Now, as the adults on set, they saw everything differently. "I was like, 'Oh, this is what's really happening here,'" Rider added. "It was hard and horrible to go through. But ultimately, very healthy and healing to experience."
"Certain people counted on us not talking to each other. When it was revealed that we were talking to each other, the curtain was pulled away," Will said. "When we started comparing notes, it wasn’t great. So, I'm very glad that I had very limited involvement with Girl."
All three of them agreed that if Girl Meets World didn't happen, they might still be "ranting and raving in only the most positive ways" about Boy Meets World.
Danielle elaborated, saying, "Your memories start coming back to you about when this happened and when that happened. You start to see it differently. Even being able to do that, that takes a certain amount of growing up and self-reflection to even recognize it happening. And I don’t think everybody recognized it happening."
Another thing that happened with Girl Meets World was Danielle realized the power dynamics that were at play from the very beginning. In particular, she didn't know that the entirety of the original cast wasn't told about the spinoff.
Danielle said she was initially told that Girl Meets World would only include small tie-ins and cameos from the original cast, with the new cast really leading the series. However, that turned out to not be the case, and Danielle and Ben ended up being series regulars.
"Honestly, the kids suffered for that," Danielle said. "It should have been their show, its own thing with little moments here and there of tie-ins — and that’s what I was told it was going to be. I was under the impression from the very beginning. I was also told that you guys [Will and Rider] were all in on it."
What Danielle came to find out is that Rider and Will had no idea about the spinoff. In fact, they learned about it through breaking news, with Will finding out when CNN called to ask for a comment.
Ultimately, Will, Danielle, and Rider say they are grateful for their time on both Boy Meets World and Girl Meets World because it allowed the trio to remain close, with Rider saying, "Boy Meets World is an overwhelmingly positive experience in all of our lives."
However, they said that Ben, who was once close with all three of them, has since "disappeared from [their] lives."
