Danielle Fishel: I Was Paid Less Than My 'Boy Meets World' Costars All 7 Seasons
“Boy Meets World” star Danielle Fishel recently opened up about her fight for pay equity while she was on the popular 1990s show.
During Tuesday’s episode of the podcast she hosts with her former costars Rider Strong and Will Friedle, Fishel revealed that she made less than other cast members her entire time on the show.
The actor, who portrayed fan-favorite Topanga Lawrence in the series, reflected on her experience fighting for better pay during a conversation with her former agent, Judy Savage, who appeared as a guest on this week’s episode.
Savage explained that she had a “hard time” getting Fishel a better contract since the actor had joined the show at a “really low number” before she began representing her.
“You had to double my salary between, I think, Seasons 4 and 5,” Fishel said to Savage. “I went from making $7,500 an episode to making $15,000 an episode.”
“We came right down to the wire, and I had to threaten to not show up to a table read,” Fishel said later, explaining how they went about negotiating her contract at the time.
Fishel said she was “very nervous” about losing her job in her quest for better pay, but her dad and Savage encouraged her to keep going.
“You knew what everyone else was making, and you knew that’s not fair, not equitable,” she said to Savage. “And I still — we still never, in a full seven seasons, we never did get me to a place where I was matched to what anyone else made.”
“I always made less than everyone else on the show, and they said it’s because of where I started,” she continued. “I started at a low threshold, I was never going to get up from there.”
Fishel then thanked Savage for doing her “darnedest” nonetheless.
“It was incredible to watch,” she told her former agent. “And you taught me a lot about negotiating, so thank you for that.”
Fishel was 12 years old when she was cast on “Boy Meets World,” which ran from 1993 to 2000. She later reprised her role in the 2014 sequel, “Girl Meets World,” which ran for three seasons.
During a panel event for 90s Con last year, Fishel spoke about her close friendships with her former “Boy Meets World” cast mates, saying, “you have fights, you have falling outs, you have moments where you come back together.”
“Because we are constantly put back together, there have been times where we’ve needed space from each other, and we’ve taken long distances,” she continued, People reported.
Fishel, Strong and Friedle told Variety last year that their former costar Ben Savage, who played Cory Matthews in the series, had somewhat “disappeared” from their lives.
“He ghosted us,” Fishel said.