The One That Got Away: Will Friedle's Boy Meets World Crush Confession

Sometimes the best relationships are the ones that never happen. That’s the takeaway from Will Friedle’s candid confession on the Pod Meets World podcast, where the actor revealed he once harbored romantic feelings for his Boy Meets World costar Danielle Fishel — and nearly made a move on her.

During the Thursday, June 4 episode, Friedle, 49, opened up about his crush that surfaced around 2005 or 2006, years after Boy Meets World wrapped its seven-season run in 2000. He remembered a specific moment when both he and Fishel, 45, were single and the timing seemed right.“There was one time where we were hanging out, and I was single and Danielle was single. I was like,‘Oh, that might be interesting to entertain,'”Friedle explained. But here’s the thing — he never actually pursued it.“There would have been a weirdness to it,”he admitted, and frankly, that instinct was probably spot-on.

What makes this confession particularly touching is how it highlights the deeper value of their actual friendship. Friedle’s cohost Rider Strong, 46, who played Cory’s best friend Shawn Hunter, put it perfectly: staying platonic meant they could all build something lasting together — the very podcast they’re now hosting.“Thank God [a relationship] didn’t happen,”Strong said, noting that if Friedle and Fishel had actually dated and broken up, the chemistry and camaraderie needed for their current project wouldn’t exist. Friedle himself echoed the sentiment, pointing out that both he and Fishel went on to meet their actual partners — Fishel married Jensen Harp, and Friedle is married to Susan Martens. Different paths. Better endings.

This confession also underscores something the cast has been exploring throughout their podcast run: the complicated feelings that can develop when you spend your formative years working closely with the same group of people. Just months earlier, Fishel had shared a diary entry from her teenage years in which she admitted to harboring a crush on Strong while he was dating Rachael Leigh Cook. Strong never reciprocated, and by the time he was single, the moment had passed — they’d drifted apart, though they later reconnected. It’s a reminder that chemistry on screen doesn’t always translate to real-world timing, and sometimes the universe gets it right by keeping certain people exactly where they belong.

What’s most refreshing here is the honesty without the drama. Friedle didn’t harbor resentment or regret. Fishel wasn’t blindsided or uncomfortable. They simply acknowledged a moment that could have been, appreciated that it wasn’t, and continued being the kind of friends who can laugh about it years later. In a celebrity landscape often defined by tabloid feuds and messy public drama, that’s genuinely rare.