The most recent Pod Meets World episode featured a tense confrontation between Danielle Fishel and a special guest.
Variety reports that Sunday’s episode of the rewatch podcast welcomed Maitland Ward, who played Rachel McGuire on Boy Meets World and later appeared in the Disney Channel follow-up Girl Meets World in 2015 alongside Fishel and Ben Savage.
Ward and Fishel haven’t had much contact since working together, with Ward claiming Fishel had issues with her on the Girl Meets World set.
After talking about Ward’s adult film career, Fishel asked, “Do you hate us?” Ward answered, “No, I do not hate you. I think that you hate me, because you wouldn’t speak to me on Girl Meets World, and that was hurtful.”
Ward mentioned writing a heartfelt Facebook message to Fishel, only to discover she’d been removed as a friend. Fishel, not a regular Facebook user, didn’t see the message until 2022. That year, co-host Will Friedle invited Ward onto the podcast. When Fishel learned about this, she wanted to reach out to Ward first.
“You wrote back to Will, ‘No, let’s just save it for the podcast,'” Fishel recalled on the episode, adding that Ward said it would “rock the stats.”
On Pod Meets World, Ward called Fishel’s attempt to talk “disingenuous.” She explained that Fishel had an “attitude” during Girl Meets World.
“There was some beef between us, and I didn’t get it,” Ward said. “I didn’t know if you thought I was trying to steal attention… I was genuinely confused why we wouldn’t be good.”
Fishel explained that Girl Meets World was a “very difficult set” where she felt “ostracized” and “criticized. I felt a lot of different things being on that set,” she continued. “I am sorry that you thought I had something personally against you.”
Ward suggested Fishel was bothered by her receiving “a lot of attention.”
Ward also mentioned feeling like the three hosts – Fishel, Friedle, and Rider Strong – spoke negatively about Boy Meets World, its creator Michael Jacobs, and Savage, who no longer communicates with the trio.
“I think there’s a divide too because you hate Ben and you guys hate Michael,” Ward claimed, which all three hosts 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 responded. “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. Ben absolutely one day woke up and said, ‘I don’t want Will in my life,’ and never told me why.”
Ward then accused the hosts of “trying to go at me now to get the ratings because you know that people will be interested.” She added, “I just wanted to remember the good times.”
Fishel countered, “I’m not the one who wanted to go for ratings… This is what you asked for.” She added that Ward seems to want a good relationship with them now but uses media opportunities “to drag our names through the mud.”
As things calmed down, Fishel reflected on the heated exchange, saying Ward “felt like this was an opportunity for her to get press by having conflict, which I am just not your girl to do that.”
