‘Boy Meets World' Cast Details Dark Side of Spinoff, Unknown Feuds and More

The story of Boy Meets World didn't end when the cameras stopped rolling.

The new documentary Doc Meets World follows three stars from the popular ‘90s sitcom - Danielle Fishel,Rider Strong and Will Friedle - as they tour the country for their podcast "Pod Meets World," a project the trio launched in 2022 with the intent of revisiting their time on ABC's Boy Meets World, which aired from 1993 to 2000.

The film attempts to peek behind the curtain of the podcast that has taken the world by storm while also giving fans an introspective look at the cast's friendships - and fallouts - since Boy Meets World ended. Fishel, Strong and Friedle also dive into the wounds that haven't fully healed from their time on the series, detailing the behind-the-scenes tensions that shaped both BMW and its Disney Channel spinoff, Girl Meets World, their complex relationship with creator Michael Jacobs and their highly publicized estrangement from former costar Ben Savage, who led both shows as main character Cory Matthews.

Keep scrolling for the biggest bombshells of the documentary, featuring Fishel, Friedle and Strong as they continue to reclaim their own stories as both individuals and famous child actors:

‘Boy Meets World' Cast Attempts to Contact Ben Savage

Fishel and Strong both say that they were shocked Friedle's career didn't take off after BMW, saying they expected him to be the next Jim Carrey or Saturday Night Live cast member.

"I didn't see anything that could have stopped him," Fishel confesses.

Friedle, meanwhile, details his very first panic attack, which occurred between the sixth and seventh season of BMW when he was filming his Disney movie H E Double Hockey Sticks.

"I had a panic attack, the world spun, and I passed out," he recalls. "Doctor came down and said, ‘I think you're having an anxiety attack,' and I said no I'm dying … I didn't know if I was going to be able to do it."

Friedle explains he wasn't taking care of himself at the time, had just "broken up with [his] first love," who he read was "already dating someone new," as well as "not exercising," "eating like s***," and "smoking a lot of weed and cigarettes." (Friedle and Jennifer Love Hewitt broke up in 1997, and she began dating MTV VJ Carson Daly that same year.)

"For a lot of people, it could have happened once and that would have been it whereas for me, I get in my head about it. I didn't know what it was and I just started spiraling," he says about his anxiety.

He eventually returned to on-screen acting work for the BMW spinoff, Girl Meets World, thanks to his wife, Susan. He says when he finally made his first appearance on the show, he looked into the audience to see Susan "just bawling."

Rider Strong Opens Up About Being the ‘Downer,' Struggling With ‘Boy Meets World'

While the trio don't often discuss BMW's spinoff, Girl Meets World - which ran on Disney for three seasons from 2016 to 2019 - on the podcast, they often allude to the series as being more difficult behind-the-scenes than its OG counterpart. The doc provides a peek behind the curtain regarding some of the spinoff's alleged issued.

Frank Pace, a producer on the show, says Jacobs was both "great" and "a nightmare" to work with because he was such a "challenge," before claiming that the writer made GMW's stars Rowan Blanchard and Sabrina Carpenter "cry" during the pilot table read, an event that Fishel says she ‘blocked out" of her brain.

"Michael was horrible," Pace recalled. "He reemed the entire young cast; he didn't think they upheld the [legacy] of Boy Meets World. Rowan was crying; Sabrina was crying."

Fishel, for her part, was initially hesitant to return to the franchise over her reservations of making another show that prioritized romantic love. She says one of her "early conversations" with Jacobs about the series was regarding her desire to put the focus on female friendship.

"If we are going to do a show on a 12-year-old girl, I don't want the entire focus to be on a relationship," she recalls telling him. "If we have the opportunity to do a TV show that's geared toward girls, I was like, let's make it about friendship."

She says that Jacobs promised her the "love story" of GMW was not going to be about "a boy," but about Blanchard and Carpenter's characters, Riley - Topanga and Cory's daughters - and Maya, Riley's BFF. But that quickly changed. "I was like, I love that. And then in the pilot of the show, [she meets a boy]."

Fishel says that as a full-time cast member on the spinoff, she started to challenge Jacobs, which caused waves. "Eventually, I got the courage to push back [on the GMW set] and I started confronting Michael. And that did not go over well."

Friedle, meanwhile, admits he initially was not going to be in the show at all because of having to learn it was greenlit when CNN "called and asked for a comment." Jacobs was persistent.

"And [Michael Jacobs] said you can do whatever on the show," he remembers, "And I said,' I want to be a writer,' and he was like, ‘You can't do that.'" (Will ended up writing a couple of episodes of the show and reprising the role of Eric for a handful of episodes.)

Strong was most interested in staying behind the camera.

"When GMW came around, I didn't consider myself an actor anymore and I definitely did not want to go back and put on the leather jacket and be Shawn Hunter again," he quipped. "I ended up directing with my brother [Shiloh] for, like, 18 episodes and it was so much fun to be on set and be with the kids and kind of get a second chance to eat my own childhood." (Strong did reprise the role of Shawn as a guest star throughout the three seasons, eventually marrying Maya's mom.)

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This story was originally published June 9, 2026 at 4:12 PM.