When she literally grew up as one of the stars on Boy Meets World, Danielle Fishel was met with her fair share of roadblocks and career issues. So when she joined its spinoff, Girl Meets World, which premiered when Danielle and her former co-stars were well into adulthood, she probably didn’t expect to be met with a whole new kind of on-set issues.
According to Danielle, though, that wasn’t necessarily the case. In an excerpt from Book Meets World: The Definitive Inside Story of the Hit Sitcom Boy Meets World, which Danielle co-wrote with Rider Strong and Will Friedle, and Variety’s Emily Longeretta, and which was shared with Variety, Danielle wrote about how she was labeled as difficult while working on the three-season spinoff.
Danielle Fishel ran into trouble as one of the stars on-set of ‘Girl Meets World.‘
Danielle wrote in one portion of the group Boy Meets World memoir that, when they filmed the flagship series, it might have been common for cast members to hug each other and be more physically affectionate. She shared as much on the podcast Pod Meets World too. But in the book, she also wrote about how, when she returned to Girl Meets World, this time as a married adult, she had different feelings about boundaries.
“Things like that would happen on Girl Meets World, and I was now a married woman,” Danielle wrote. “I then started creating boundaries. And those boundaries apparently made me ‘difficult.’”
Apparently, her crime was making those boundaries heard. She wrote that she knew other people on-set were “uncomfortable” with her because of the boundaries she felt she needed to set right away. She also noted that it didn’t have anything to do with potential jealousy from her husband. But, because of her boundaries, she felt there was an “exhausting environment” on the set for her.
Fans understand Danielle Fishel’s issue with physical touch on the ‘Girl Meets World’ set.
On Reddit, users came to Danielle’s defense, both as a child and as an adult when she returned to the franchise for the Disney Channel spinoff. Most users agreed that you shouldn’t have to accept hugs or physical touch on-set if it has nothing to do with a role or a scene.
“She is basically saying that the cast and crew were overly huggy and at the end of the night when she just wanted to go home, she was expected to hug everyone on set, which is like 40 people and then when she got there the next morning, she would have to do it all over again,” one Redditor commented on the post. “I completely understand where she is coming from. I barely even hug my own family that much.”
Another added, “Not a female, but I really dislike how many people expect that women are OK with hugs as a greeting in a professional environment. If I were a woman, I wouldn’t want to be hugged either at work.”
She dealt with different issues towards the end of ‘Boy Meets World.’‘
In interviews and on the Pod Meets World podcast, Danielle has shared difficulties regarding body image toward the end of the Boy Meets World series, which she co-starred in until its series finale in 2000. In 2026, Danielle told Us Weekly that there came a time when her weight was an issue on-set and she was asked not to wear anything that showed too much of her arms.
“I was aware, even if nobody said it to me directly…that as far as the people in power were concerned, my body was a problem,” Danielle told the outlet. “I remember around the time of [the] prom episode being aware that they didn’t want me wearing something sleeveless.”
She added that, during the last few seasons of the show, her “body was a problem.”
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