Danielle Fishel has accused a “creepy” ‘Boy Meets World’ executive of telling her he had a calendar photo of her aged 16 hanging in his bedroom.
Danielle Fishel has accused a ‘creepy’ ‘Boy Meets World’ executive of telling her he had a calendar photo of her aged 16 hanging in his bedroom
The former child star, 42, was 12 when she was shot to fame playing Topanga Lawrence in the coming-of-age sitcom – which ran for seven seasons from 1993 to 2000 – and made the claim while discussing being “an object of desire at such a young age” with her ‘Pod Meets World’ podcast co-hosts and former castmates on the show, Rider Strong, 43, and 46-year-old Will Friedle.
She said: “I had people tell me they had my 18th birthday on their calendar. I had a male executive – I did a calendar at 16 – and he specifically told me he had a certain calendar month in his bedroom.”
Danielle added even though his admission made her feel uncomfortable she was thought at the time it was part of “how you relate to peers”.
The mum-of-two said: “As a kid, I always wanted to be older. I always wanted to be an adult. I wanted to be seen as an adult.
“So getting adult male attention as a teenage girl felt like — I didn’t think of it as being creepy or weird.
“I felt like it was validation that I was mature and I was an adult and I was capable and that they were seeing me the way I was, not for the number on a page,” she went on. “And in hindsight, that is absolutely wrong.”
Danielle has her two children with film producer Jensen Karp, 43, who she married in November 2018 after her March 2016 divorce from Tim Belusko.
She also said her experience on ‘Boy Meets World’ made her “bad at boundaries” in her romantic relationships.
She added: “I had absolutely no expectations of how you’re supposed to talk to me, of how you’re supposed to treat me.
“I would stick it out for the sake of sticking it out because I didn’t want anyone to think I thought I was better than them or that they were not good enough for me.
“I didn’t really process how it affected me as a teenager – or how it affected me in my 20s or even in my 30s – up until the last few years, and then I was really able to look back on it and connect the dots.”