Danielle Fishel and Maitland Ward’s Feud Explained: Breaking Down the ‘Boy Meets World’ Drama

Danielle Fishel and Maitland Ward’s drama started long before their heated “Pod Meets World” conversation.

Fishel and Ward met while filming Boy Meets World season 6 in 1998. Fishel had been on the series since its inaugural season in 1993, and Ward joined the cast five years later. The women worked together until the series wrapped up in 2000.

Years after Boy Meets World came to an end, Fishel would go on to return to the spinoff series Girl Meets World and later transitioned to working behind the scenes in TV. Ward, for her part, joined the adult entertainment industry.

In those years since the show had wrapped, Ward and Fischel sparked a feud. It seemingly began over Ward claiming that she reached out to Fishel via Facebook to congratulate her on her engagement to her first-husband Tim Belusko in 2012. However, Fishell claimed that she did not see the message until years later. (Fishel is now married to husband Jensen Karp.)

The pair reunited on a February 2025 episode of “Pod Meets World,” which Fishel hosts alongside fellow costars Will Friedle and Rider Strong, and Fishel and Ward got into a heated exchange over their issues.

Keep scrolling for a break down on Fishel and Ward’s feud:

‘Boy Meets World’

On the ABC show, Fishel and Ward played Topanga and Rachel, respectively. They worked together for two seasons until the series wrapped up in 2000.

‘Girl Meets World’ Drama

At one point when the spinoff was airing from 2014 to 2017, Ward visited the set for a taping but did not make a guest appearance on camera. Ward claimed that Fishel was cold toward her.

“I was shocked that she didn’t even … she said ‘Hello,’ that’s it. It’s just a weird kind of thing, and I wish that we could be friends and I don’t know the full reasons behind it,” Ward exclusively told Us Weekly in September 2022. “I had heard maybe she didn’t like the whole old costars on the show, the girls to come back on there or something, but I don’t know why she didn’t or doesn’t like me … we didn’t, like, have a blowout. I was expecting bear hugs like I got from the guys [Ben Savage and Rider Strong], and [with Danielle] it was like, ‘Oh … hi.’”

Three years later, Ward and Fishel rehashed the interaction and offered some clarity about why she wasn’t very friendly while 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.”

Fishel apologized to Ward for thinking she had “something personally against” her.

Maitland Ward’s Memoir Claims

In Ward’s book, My Escape from Hollywood: Unapologetic, Unfiltered and Unashamed, she opened up about her ups and downs with Fishel while on set.

“She definitely didn’t seem to hate me,” she wrote in the 2022 memoir. “In fact, we connected over things you wouldn’t expect, like our love of Chihuahuas and pet rats. Still, no matter how well we got along, there would always be a part of me that distrusted her and her motives toward me, and it all stemmed from Kaitlin Simpson Michael [Jacob’s] first warnings.”

The Facebook Debate

During Ward’s February 2025 appearance on “Pod Meets World,” the actress claimed that Fishel ignored her Facebook message from 2012 and unfriended her. Fishel denied that she ignored it and stated that she does not frequent the platform.

“I am not a Facebook person,” Fishel said. “I then went into my Facebook page, saw that we were not friends. Didn’t remember when we were friends on Facebook or when we were no longer friends on Facebook. I found your message in the graveyard of messages, and I then felt very bad.”

Fishel explained that she wanted to reach out to Ward to apologize so asked Friedle for her number. However, she was told to save their conversation for Ward’s eventual appearance on the podcast.

‘Pod Meets World’ Argument

Fishel and Ward’s drama reignited during a heated exchange on a February 2025 episode. While the chat started off nice, things took a turn which prompted Fishel to ask Ward if she “hated” them. Ward replied, “No,” but decided to air out her grievances.

“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 with the twosome’s friendship. “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.”

Fishel responded, “I was on the cover of Maxim in 2014.”

Ward then went on to claim that Fishel, Friedle and Strong had problems with the show creator and star Ben Savage (who is famously no longer on speaking terms with his costars) because of comments they made on the podcast. The trio denied the sentiments. She also accused the hosts of “grilling” her in the interview.

“Let’s be honest about this, you’re trying to go at me now because of the ratings and because people will be interested,” she claimed. Fishel replied, “No Maitland, I’m not the one who wanted to go for ratings.”

Despite the tense conversation, it did end in a calm manner.

“It was nice to reminisce,” Fishel said. “Share some good times, share some not-so-good times.”

Podcast Aftermath

Following the headline-making appearance, Ward reflected on her and Fishel’s back and forth.

“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 in an interview one day after the show dropped. “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 she did not go onto the show to “create controversy” noting that the first part of the interview was “very friendly.”

“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.”

Us has reached out to Fishel’s team for comment.