Boy Meets World's Maitland Ward Details Set Up Rivalry Between Her & Danielle Fishel 

There were no problems when Girl met Girl. 

And yet, when Maitland Ward joined the cast of Boy Meets World for its last two seasons as Rachel, the show’s producers, including creator Michael Jacobs, appeared to try to seed a rivalry between her and Danielle Fishel, who played Topanga.  

“A lot of people said Danielle would hate me because I was the girl coming in,” Rachel reflected in an exclusive interview with E! News. “But she didn’t. She was very nice to me when I came in. It’s weird that people would like, set that up.”

As Maitland recalled, producers on the series continued to reiterate, “‘Oh yeah, she’s gonna hate you because you’re the new girl and you’re tall and like, the sexy girl or whatever.’”

The White Chicks actress—who has since gone on to have a successful career in the adult entertainment industry—noted that their producers’ words were not “diabolical,” but rather an “offhand comment that girls wouldn’t get along with other girls, or girls would be against each other.”

As for what it was like when she and Danielle finally met? 

“She definitely didn’t seem to hate me,” Maitland, 47, wrote in her memoir, My Escape from Hollywood: Unapologetic, Unfiltered and Unashamed, which hit shelves last month. “In fact, we connected over things you wouldn’t expect, like our love of Chihuahuas and pet rats. Still, no matter how well we got along, there would always be a part of me that distrusted her and her motives toward me, and it all stemmed from Michael’s first warnings.”

The Bold and Beautiful actress also shared how her entrance on Boy Meets World in 1997 signified a new chapter, “the college years”—as, from her perspective, the show attempted to keep up with the popularity of Friends. 

During this time, Maitland found the women on set—including herself, Danielle and Trina McGee, who played Angela—were put into stereotyped boxes: she describes herself as “the provocative one,” while labeling Danielle, 43, as “the golden child,” and Trina, 55, as “the grown-up."

And looking back at the show—which ended in 2000 after seven seasons—she can see how much that box shaped her character. 

“I was more of the sexy one and it's funny looking back on all of the episodes,” she explained to E! News. I was so much part of the sexual butt of the joke and a lot of them. At the time I had no thoughts of like, it was anything fetishy or sexual but looking back now, I'm like, ‘Wow, that if I did that naked, I could sell that on OnlyFans.’ You know?”

Despite her reflections, Maitland doesn’t look back sourly at her time on Boy Meets World. In fact, in addition to her enduring friendship with star Ben Savage, she describes her current relationship with the show’s creator as “wonderful,” especially after he called her to discuss some of the issues she brings up in her memoir. 

“I give him so many props for calling me and we just spoke for like an hour and a half,” she noted. “We really hashed a lot of stuff out. He's very supportive.”

E! News reached out to Michael Jacobs for comment but has not yet heard back. 

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