Ben Savage’s teenage ‘energy’ affected partnership with Danielle Fishel on spinoff “Girl Meets World”, new book claims

Kat PettiboneWed, November 11, 2026 at 12:30 PM UTC

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Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel in 2014Credit: Ben Horton/WireImageKey Points -

Boy Meets World star Danielle Fishel says in a new book that she was “looking forward” to reuniting with Ben Savage for spinoff Girl Meets World, in hopes they’d be adult “examples” for the younger cast.

Once filming began, however, Savage exuded the “same energy he did as a teenager” while Fishel felt she had “matured.”

Book Meets World: The Definitive Inside Story of Hit Sitcom Boy Meets World is out now.

Danielle Fishel was excited to reunite with Boy Meets World costar Ben Savage on the set of spinoff Girl Meets World — but the reality ended up being vastly different from what she had hoped.

Fishel and Savage played Topanga Lawrence and Cory Matthews, respectively, on all seven seasons of Boy Meets World, which ran from 1993 to 2000. The pair played on-and-off love interests throughout the show’s early seasons before eventually getting married and later moving to New York during BMW’s series finale.

Fourteen years later, the duo agreed to reprise their roles for Disney Channel’s 2014 spinoff, Girl Meets World, which featured Cory and Topanga as parents to 12-year-old daughter Riley (Rowan Blanchard) as she faced the ups and downs of growing up.

In her new book, Book Meets World — which she cowrote with costars Will Friedle (Eric Matthews) and Rider Strong (Shawn Hunter) — Fishel recalls entering the spinoff in a “partnership” with Savage, both receiving the “same salary as part of a ‘favored-nations’ contract.” It was a far cry from Boy Meets World, where Savage was allegedly making nearly three figures to Fishel’s $30,000 per episode during the show’s final season.

Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel on ‘Boy Meets World’Credit: ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty

“I was very, very much looking forward to doing Girl Meets World,” she says in the book, “and to having a partnership with Ben, where we were two adults on a kids’ show who could be examples of professionalism, showing that you can grow up and be normal in the industry, I wanted to be an advocate.”

But once the pair actually “reconnected” on set, Fishel claims Savage still had “the same energy he did as a teenager.”

She admits there were “pros” to Savage’s youthful behavior, but she had “changed” in the years that had passed. She writes, “[The] ways that I had matured may have made me boring, but they definitely also made me more professional.”

For example, as teens on BMW, the cast often “playfully and innocently tackled each other.” But as a 32-year-old married woman, Fishel felt things should be “different.”

Unfortunately, that seemingly wasn’t always the case. “Things like that would happen on Girl Meets World, and I was now a married woman,” she explains. She began “creating boundaries,” which ultimately got her labeled as “difficult” to work with.

Fishel adds that she “knew she was disliked” on set and that much of the cast and crew were “uncomfortable” around her. She claims some people would even “roll their eyes” and act “dismissive” when she would raise her hand to give notes about an episode.

Entertainment Weekly has reached out to Savage for comment.

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Book Meets World is far from the first time Fishel has opened up about her tumultuous time on Girl Meets World. Earlier this year, she shared on the I Choose Me With Jennie Garth podcast that she had been a really “go-with-the-flow” person during her Boy Meets World era, making her “so easy to work with.”

“And essentially what that meant is the producers felt like they could tell me to do whatever they wanted me to do, and I would never push back,” she explained. “And when we got to Girl Meets World, I think I had been so used to, in my personal life, going away from that, that when we went to the set, and I was now a new person, an adult, a grownup, who had thoughts and opinions of her own, and wasn’t incredibly shy about sharing them.”

Fishel pointed out that she wasn’t “chastising somebody else’s decisions” in front of big groups, but instead made a point to “talk to the people” she “felt uncomfortable with” — a move that was allegedly not appreciated by all.

Danielle Fishel and Ben Savage on ‘Girl Meets World’Credit: Mitch Haaseth/Disney Channel via Getty

“And the response was, ‘Well, she’s gone crazy! Have you seen what’s going on with her? She’s gone crazy. She’s got rules and boundaries about the way we’re allowed to talk to her and to touch her and to interact with her. It’s shocking!’”

Fishel recalled questioning herself, wondering if she really was being “difficult.” But the alternative — not speaking up at all — didn’t make her feel like she could “live” with herself, so speaking her mind was the only real option.

“So I guess I just have to be difficult,” she remembered thinking. “And that has to be okay with me. I guess I am a difficult person, even though I didn’t think any of the things I was asking for or requesting was difficult.”

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After Girl Meets World wrapped its three seasons in 2017, Fishel and Savage were able to reform their friendship. Fishel notes in Book Meets World that there was a “calmer sense” about her after the series ended. Savage even attended her 2018 wedding to husband Jensen Karp and was “really there for her” when her first son was born.

The pair have since drifted apart, however, and according to the book, have “not spoken in over five years.”

Book Meets World is on shelves now.

on Entertainment Weekly

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