Maitland Ward and Danielle Fishel Feud Reaches Boiling Point in Tense Podcast Argument

Fishel and her co-hosts Will Friedle and Rider Strong invited Ward on to reminisce about her character Rachael McGuire joining the show in its sixth season, as well as revisiting the character for sequel series Girl Meets World in 2015.

After talking about Ward’s career, which included a surprise shift into adult entertainment after GMW, Fishel just went right to the heart of it all when she asked her former co-star pointedly, “Do you hate us?”

“No, I do not hate you,” Ward shot back, per Variety. “I think that you hate me, because you wouldn’t speak to me on Girl Meets World, and that was hurtful.”

She accused Fishel of having “attitude about it” during their time on the Disney Channel sequel series. “There was some beef between us and I didn’t get it,” she said. “I didn’t know if you thought I was trying to steal attention.”

She said she didn’t understand what the problem was, but because of it, she felt that Fishel reaching out to try and reconnect with her nearly a decade later was “disingenuous.”

The sordid saga behind the women questioning whether they like one another or not started back in 2013 when Ward sent a message to Fishel on Facebook, only to later realize they were no longer friends on the platform.

For her part, Fishel didn’t even see the message until 2022, as she barely checks in on or uses her Facebook account. It was at that time that Friedle shared that he’d spoken to Ward about possibly having her as a guest on their new podcast.

It was during that discussion that Friedle clued Fishel in that she’d left Ward hanging for nearly a decade, which led Fishel to ask Friedle if he could try to get Ward’s number so she could reach out.

On this latest podcast episode, Fishel shared what happened next, talking directly to Ward.

“You wrote back to Will, ‘No, let’s just save it for the podcast,'” she said, noting that Ward also said that them talking for the first time after all of that drama around the show would “rock the stats.”

The problem is that apparently Ward didn’t think it would be years before she would be invited on the show, though the fact she didn’t join until Season 6 and this is a rewatch podcast should have clued her in as to when she might get that invite.

As for that Girl Meets World “attitude” Ward accused her of having, Fishel admitted that the second series was a “very difficult set.” She contrasted it to the “memories we have of the fun set of Boy Meets World.”

“I went into it expecting it to be [the same], and it wasn’t,” Fishel said. “It was a rather tumultuous place. I felt very ostracized. I felt very criticized. I felt a lot of different things being on that set.”

To Ward she added, “I am sorry that you thought I had something personally against you.”

Ward again reiterated her belief that Fishel didn’t like that she “was getting a lot of attention at that time and going off in my own space and taking away that attention.” In her closing statements on the podcast, which were critical of Ward’s actions at this time, Fishel seemed to add some weight to this perception.

Girl Meets World (2014-2017) was still airing when Ward made a more dramatic shift toward her ultimate adult entertainment career with nude and topless photographs, including bodypaint and cosplay images in 2016. She signed her first adult film contract in 2019, two years after GMW went off the air.

After things appeared to have settled a bit on the podcast, Fishel again poked the tension when she asked Ward why it is that every time the PMW podcast seems to hit the news cycle, there’s Ward on TMZ cameras talking trash about the cast.

Ward said that the news outlet seeks her out due to continued interest in the show, before asking if Fishel is “trying to accuse me of using you, or are you trying to accuse me of something?”

The actress went on to say that she thinks some of the tension she has with her former colleagues might have to do with the podcast hosts publicly addressing their issues with former BMW star Ben Savage and show creator Michael Jacobs.

“I think there’s a divide too because you hate Ben and you guys hate Michael,” she said, a statement which everyone disagreed with and denied.

Friedle jumped into the fray about Savage, saying that it’s actually hurtful what’s happened between them, but it’s not through any choice of his.

“Ben is one of the most important people I’ve ever met in my life, and I can’t stand the fact that he won’t speak to us,” he pushed back. “And that’s what it is: He won’t speak to us.”

“I can show you the last three years, literally, of messages and in the middle of a conversation with Ben, he just bailed on me,” Friedle continued. “Ben absolutely one day woke up and said, ‘I don’t want Will in my life,’ and never told me why.”

Strong also jumped in at this point in regards to Jacobs, saying that the conversations about their time on the show are genuine and come from their real experiences.

Ward asked, “You’re not doing it just to get listens?” to which he replied, “No. If I’m talking about Michael yelling at me, that’s my experience. I was yelled at. I watched him do things. I can describe that. That’s the truth.”

But Ward pushed back, arguing that none of them would even have careers were it not for Jacobs. At this point, though, Fishel shot back, “So is the price we pay for that … silence?” “Dishonesty?” Strong added.

Ward then argued that she also takes issue with a perceived negativity about Boy Meets World on the podcast, while admitting she does not listen regularly. But Fishel denied that, using Ward’s own memoir.

“The same way you wrote your book about your experiences doesn’t mean that they’re negative,” she argued. “They’re just experiences.”

As the tension continued to escalate between the former costars, Ward accused Fishel of “trying to go at me now to get the ratings because you know that people will be interested.”

“I just wanted to remember the good times,” she said.

Fishel then brought back Ward’s statement from a few years back where she opted not to talk to Fishel privately but wanted to save it for the podcast where it would “rock the stats.”

“I’m not the one who wanted to go for ratings,” Fishel told Ward. “This is what you asked for.”

She also questioned Ward wanting to keep it positive and “remember the good times” now when she was anything but positive in the press. “That’s the time you want to drag our names through the mud,” Fishel argued.

After bringing down the temperature and ending with an invite to have Ward back on, the trio ended the conversation with their former costar. Fishel then reiterated that she doesn’t hate Ward, adding context to her feelings.

“Similarly to the way she decided when Girl Meets World and all that stuff was in the press, that that was an opportunity for her to make a name for herself in cosplay play and in role-playing,” Fishel said, appearing to confirm Ward’s perception that Fishel had an issue with her, “She felt like this was an opportunity for her to get press by having conflict, which I am just not your girl to do that.”

“And she thought it was disingenuous for me to reach out to her,” she continued. “I think wanting to do it for stats is disingenuous.”

You can listen to Ward’s entire visit on Pod Meets World below.