The Boy Meets World cast have had their fair share of feuds and drama with each other over the years.
The ABC series, created by Michael Jacobs, ran for seven seasons from 1993 to 2000 and starred Ben Savage, Rider Strong, Will Friedle, Danielle Fishel, William Russ, Betsy Randle and William Daniels. As Boy Meets World went on, the series expanded its cast, bringing on Trina McGee, Matthew Lawrence and Maitland Ward as series regulars.
Since wrapping the show in 2000, many of the stars remained friendly including Friedle, Strong and Fishel, who launched their rewatch podcast, “Pod Meets World,” in 2022. However, not all Boy Meets World relationships have stayed on good terms.
Keep scrolling to see which stars have feuded over the years:
Danielle Fishel, Rider Strong and Will Friedle vs. Michael Jacobs
Since Fishel, Strong and Friedle launched “Pod Meets World,” the trio have been critical of their experience working with Jacobs. During an August 2022 episode, Fishel recalled how Jacobs allegedly threatened to fire her on her first day if her performance did not improve.
“Michael starts off the notes by saying, ‘Danielle, I’m going to give you your notes all at 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 had for you, we would all be here for hours and no one would ever get to go home. So you’re just going to wait for the end,’” she claimed. “From that moment on, my eyes welled up because you know, I’m now in front of everybody–all the producers, all the writers, all the cast, and all eyes are on me for a second.”
Three months later, Strong also expressed his dissatisfaction when he attempted to offer an idea to Jacobs about talking about safe sex in the script.
“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,” Strong claimed. “I felt, at the time, that that was incredibly irresponsible.”
Jacobs has never publicly addressed Fishell nor Strong’s claims. However, Fishel claimed in a June 2023 interview with Variety that she heard Jacobs was “upset” with what the trio had said about him on the podcast, and that she is not on speaking terms with Jacobs.
“The relationship with him in my mind is one where, no matter how truthful or honest the thing is that I’ve said, and regardless of whether or not it is even just, ‘I felt this way,’ I know, instantly, he would try to explain to me how that’s wrong — or why I shouldn’t have felt that way,” she said to the outlet. “He’d explain, ‘Here’s the reason I did what I did.’ And it would always be, no matter what, for some benevolent, ‘I was saving you’ reason. And it’s very hard to have a truly real relationship with someone who has a hard time acknowledging their own faults.”
Danielle Fishel, Rider Strong and Will Friedle vs. Ben Savage
The “Pod Meets World” trio are also on shaky terms with Savage, who was the lead actor on the series. Ahead of the release of the rewatch podcast, Fishel, Strong and Friedle revealed that Savage ultimately decided he would not participate.
“We talked about it all, the four of us. It was something we all were back and forth, ‘What’s the best way to do it?’ because that was before the ‘Office Ladies.’ It was before this was its own genre,” Fishel exclusively told Us Weekly in July 2022. “And so we talked about all the different ways we could do it. And at the end of our conversations, Ben said, ‘I just don’t think it’s for me.’ And we get it. So we’re respecting his decision. And if he eventually wants to come on, we’ll leave that door open.”
Despite wanting him to join them on the podcast, Savage has continued to distance himself from the group — and in 2023, ran for United States Senate. In June 2023, Friedle, who played Savage’s older brother on the show, revealed that he had not spoken to his former costar in three years.
“He disappeared — I wish I knew why, to this day,” Friedle told Variety at the time. “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.’”
Friedle shared that he attempted to get in contact with Savage multiple times but received no response.
“I’ve known him since he was 11 years old, and we have a shared history. And we were doing these conventions together, and we were getting to know each other as adults, and then he just kind of went, ‘I’m done with you,’” he added, noting that their estrangement is a “sore subject” to discuss. “I tried and tried and tried for months, until finally my wife was like, ‘Why are you doing this to yourself? He obviously doesn’t want you in his life.’”
While Savage has not publicly discussed why he is no longer in touch with Fishel, Strong and Friedle, the trio has continued to speak highly of him on the podcast.
In a February 2025 episode with Ward, the actress accused Fishel, Strong and Friedle of hating Savage, which they denied.
“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. And that’s what it is: He won’t speak to us,” Friedle said before alleging “in the middle of a conversation with Ben, he just bailed on me.”
Trina McGee vs. Will Friedle
McGee, who played Angela on the series starting in season 5, shared on social media in 2020 that she was referred to as “Aunt Jemima” by a cast member. After keeping the person’s identity a secret, she revealed it was Friedle — and that he apologized for the racist remark multiple times.
“For the record: Will Friedle, the man responsible for Aunt Jemima-gate, apologized to me 22 years ago and again days ago in a three-page letter,” she wrote via Instagram in April 2020 alongside a photo of her and Friedle. “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. THIS SHOULD AND COULD BE A TEACHING MOMENT FOR ALL.”
Six months later, McGee appeared on “Pod Meets World” and Friedle publicly addressed their drama.
“In my head, I attached no cultural significance to that whatsoever. I saw a person who I thought was my friend but didn’t know all that well wearing a big, red hat,” Friedle explained. “You and I still hadn’t worked together a ton, but in my head you were a part of the cast so that means I’m gonna make fun of you. So I thought ‘gonna make fun of her red hat.’ That’s as far as my dumb privileged mind saw it.”
Trina McGee vs. Danielle Fishel
In addition to her feud with Friedle, McGee also had an issue with Fishel. In 2020, McGee tweeted that one of her former costars greeted her “with blank cold stares” and Fishel came forward that the message was about her.
“I owed @realtrinamcgee an apology for being rude, cold, & distant when she guest starred on GMW (her tweet regarding warm hellos being met with cold blank stares was about me). Trina and I spoke over a month ago and she gracefully accepted my apology,” Fishel wrote via X at the time.
McGee and Fishel have since patched things up.
Trina McGee vs. Ben Savage
During a November 2024 appearance on the “In Godfrey We Trust” podcast, McGee revealed that she did not have a good relationship with Savage.
“He would look at the other two people because it was always the four of us: me, Topanga [Fishel,] Shawn [Strong] and him. And he would be like, ‘You might be the W, you’re the O and Trina you’re the D but I’m the boy,” she claimed referring to the show’s title. “He would really say that. And I’m 10 years older than them. Like come get these kids.”
McGee has shared that Savage has not apologized to her while her other former costars have.
Matthew Lawrence vs. Director Alan Myserson
Lawrence, who joined Boy Meets World in season 5, claimed he felt “tension” on set with Myserson, who directed a majority of the episodes that season.
“I remember there were some conflicts between the cast and him. I do remember that for sure,” Lawrence said in a September 2024 “Pod Meets World” appearance. “And so I think there was a moment where but I didn’t feel like I had the my feet underneath me enough to come state my position.”
Friedle recalled a time Lawrence stood up to Myerson during an episode that featured Candace Cameron Bure and fought for the way he thought the line should be delivered.
“He wanted you to engage her and do a different thing. And you’re like, ‘No,’ Because I remember you came and talked to me about it,” Friedle reflected. “You’re like, ‘No,the comedy is I’m not looking at her. I’m looking away and finishing my thought and he doesn’t want me to do it,’ and I’m like, ‘Well, go tell him that.’ You’re like, ‘You’re right, I’m gonna.’ And then you just did it your way and you got a big laugh.”
Rider Strong vs. Adam Scott
Scott revealed during a January 2023 “Pod Meets World” episode that he had been upset with Strong for nearly three decades. According to Scott, Strong allegedly blew him off at a season 2 wrap party.
“I go in and hug you and as I do that, you push me off and you give me this look, like, ‘Wait a second who the f–- are you?’ and then you run away,” Scott claimed.
Strong, for his part, had no recollection of the moment. “Are you serious? Why would I do that?” That actually doesn’t sound like me at all, ’cause I’m generally a hugger!” he wondered aloud.
After talking about the incident, Strong apologized to Scott.
Danielle Fishel vs. Maitland Ward
While Ward and Fishel’s drama made headlines in February 2025 their feud goes way back. Ward, who joined the cast in season 6, claimed that after wrapping up Boy Meets World, Fishel ignored her Facebook message and unfriended her. However, Fishel claimed that did not see the message until years later. Fishel shared that she wanted to reach out to Ward to apologize and asked Friedle for contact info but she was told to save it for an upcoming podcast interview to get good “ratings.”
In addition to the Facebook drama, Ward has repeatedly claimed that Fishel was rude to her during a taping of Girl Meets World, which was a Disney Channel spinoff starring Fishel and Savage.
“There was some beef between us and I didn’t get it. And maybe I picked up the wrong signals, but definitely there was some sort of weirdness there,” Ward said, adding that she “did not know” what could have gone wrong between the twosome. “I didn’t know if you thought that I was trying to come onto the set and take over. Not take over, but try to steal attention or something. But I didn’t know.”
After reminding Ward she was on “the cover of Maxim in 2014,” Fishel explained why she wasn’t friendly while she was working.
“It was a very, very difficult set. Let’s put it this way: The memories we have of the fun set of Boy Meets World were not the memories [from the] set of Girl Meets World,” Fishel said in February 2025. “It just wasn’t. And I went into it hoping it was going to be. I went into it expecting it to be. And it wasn’t. 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.”
While the pair’s conversation got heated, the exchange ended on a good note. However, Ward spoke out about the appearance one day after it aired.
“I’m just surprised by the whole situation, and I’ve had a little time to reflect on it since I did the show a week and a half ago,” Ward told TooFab at the time. “It just felt uneasy to have people that you called friends — especially in the past, I thought Danielle was my friend — I can see that she did not like me, and she has harbored not liking me through the years, but it’s sad to me too.”
Ward clarified that it was not her intention to go on the show to “create controversy.”
“I thought, like, any problems we had, we would talk in a conversational way, so I wasn’t expecting such a jarring shift,” Ward claimed. “It was like, all of a sudden she was Topanga and then she switched into [Mean Girls’] Regina George.”