The Boy Meets World cast spoke candidly about their estrangement from series lead Ben Savage in their Doc Meets World documentary.
“I want to say it to his face,” Will Friedle exclusively told Us Weekly during the Sunday, June 7, Tribeca Film Festival premiere.
Danielle Fishel also thought discussing the issue with Savage, also 45, would be “good.”
Savage rose to fame playing Cory Matthews on ABC’s Boy Meets World sitcom, which also starred Friedle, 49, Fishel, 45, and Rider Strong as Cory’s brother, girlfriend-turned-wife and best friend, respectively. In the years after BMW wrapped in 2000 after seven seasons, Savage distanced himself from Hollywood and the cast.
“Ben refused to do the [‘Pod Meets World’ recap] podcast, but we still communicated with him, still on friendly terms, we thought,” Strong, 46, alleged in the documentary. “He unfollowed us on Instagram and blocked our phone numbers. I feel sorry that he’s missing out on the experience that Danielle and Will and I are having.”
Strong, who appeared as Shawn Hunter throughout BMW, admittedly drifted apart from Savage and the rest of the cast after the series wrapped.
“Toward the end of it, I had such a relationship with it that I wanted to get away from it so badly I wanted so badly to make my own identity away from the show,” Strong recalled in the film. “Without realizing it, I isolated myself from [Danielle and Will]. An unfortunate side effect of wanting to get away from BMW is I ended up cutting out the people who were closest, who knew me better than almost anybody.”
He continued, “This podcast was the greatest midlife crisis, it’s actually drawn people closer to us.”
As for Friedle, he claimed in the doc that he still texts Savage “probably at least once a month” with the slight hope that his former TV sibling will eventually “reach out one day.”
“I really do miss him,” Friedle said. “He’s arguably one of the funniest people I’ve ever met in my life.”
Savage has never publicly addressed where he stands with Friedle, Strong or Fishel, who tell Us that the former child star was also especially friendly with BMW creator Michael Jacobs.
“They’ve always been very close,” Fishel told Us on Sunday, which Strong and Friedle both echoed.
Strong added, “They’ve always been … creative partners. I mean, I think Michael saw himself in Ben, you know, and then was writing a lot of his own childhood through Ben, and they just had a great relationship.”
Jacobs, 70, later created the Girl Meets World spinoff on Disney Channel from 2014 to 2017, during which Savage, Fishel, Friedle and Strong all reprised their beloved roles.
With reporting by Proma Khosla
