Maitland Ward Speaks Out About Fight With ‘Regina George’ Danielle Fishel on ‘Boy Meets World’ Podcast

The ’90s sitcom feud no one saw coming erupted on air when Maitland Ward accused former co-star Danielle Fishel of channeling her inner “Mean Girl” during a tense podcast reunion. Following her appearance on the Pod Meets World podcast, Ward expressed shock at how quickly the conversation deteriorated when discussing past tensions with her former Boy Meets World co-star. In an interview with TooFab published Tuesday, February 25, Ward described feeling blindsided by the confrontational turn.

“I’m a little — I won’t say shaken up or anything. 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. “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.”

The podcast episode, which dropped just a day before Ward’s TooFab interview, featured an uncomfortable exchange where longstanding tensions between the actresses bubbled to the surface. What began as a cordial conversation took a dramatic shift when they addressed their strained relationship, particularly Ward’s claim that Fishel had unfriended her on Facebook – an allegation Fishel firmly denied.

“I just wanna say I did not come on that show to create controversy and to drum anything up at that time and I think fans can see that,” Ward explained. “The first part of the show was very friendly. That’s why it was such a weird switch at the end.”

Particularly disappointing for Ward was co-host Will Friedle‘s role in arranging her podcast appearance. According to Ward, Friedle, 48, had presented the opportunity as something that would be “fun” rather than confrontational.

“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.”

Tensions centered around interactions during the production of Girl Meets World, the Disney Channel continuation that ran from 2014 to 2017. During the podcast, Ward expressed feeling snubbed by Fishel during filming.

“You had an attitude about it. There was some beef between us, and I didn’t get it,” Ward said during the podcast exchange. “I didn’t know if you thought I was trying to steal attention… I was genuinely confused why we wouldn’t be good.”

She further specified, “You did not speak to me except for one sentence. That’s it. I thought we were friends.”

Fishel, 43, defended herself by attributing her behavior to workplace stress rather than personal animosity. “I was working. It was a stressful environment,” she explained.

At one point during the tense podcast conversation, Ward suggested the hosts might be capitalizing on her controversial career pivot for ratings, saying, “You’re just trying to go at me for the ratings.” Fishel immediately rejected this characterization: “No Maitland, sorry. I’m not doing this for ratings. This is what you asked for.”

Despite the heated exchange, Ward told TooFab she remains open to returning to the podcast for a more constructive conversation. “I am not a coward about these things and I would do it,” she said. “I definitely think there’s more to be said on the matter, and I think it has to be approached in a more adult way. There are big problems in the world, and we were discussing at length whether or not she unfriended me on Facebook. These were kind of petty matters in a lot of ways, but I think we can have a deeper conversation.”

The podcast hosts, including Fishel, appear receptive to a follow-up discussion, with Fishel extending an invitation for Ward to return in the future.