Boy Meets World star Danielle Fishel, 44, reveals scrutiny over her weight as a teenager nearly derailed her career

Danielle Fishel is best known as the free-spirited Topanga Lawrence on Boy Meets World, but few knew she was wrestling with a body image crisis behind-the-scenes.

The Teen Beat podcast host, 44, spoke out about the scrutiny placed on her during the final years of the 1990s sitcom, telling Us Weekly her insecurities nearly ended her career as she knew it then.

'I was aware, even if nobody said it to me directly… that as far as the people in power were concerned, my body was a problem,' said Fishel, who is in a more positive mindset these days after battling breast cancer.

'I remember around the time of [1998's] prom episode being aware that they didn't want me wearing something sleeveless.'

Fishel, who was 12 when she was cast as Topanga in Boy Meets World in 1993, played the iconic role until 2000 when she was 19, and revealed these years were emotionally daunting especially for a girl who had put on weight.

She admitted she felt 'no longer attractive' because of her weight gain, which was noticeable enough for the producers to create a storyline around it.

'I just so did not want to be there; I was uncomfortable on set every day,' Fishel shared. 'There was this feeling that I was no longer attractive, because I had gained weight. I just wanted to be anywhere other than on set. I was probably a curmudgeon.'

Producers put a spotlight on Fishel's weight gain in a season seven episode titled She's Having My Baby Back Ribs.

In the episode, Topanga and Eric – played by Will Friedle – go on a diet after feeling self-conscious about their weight gain, and Cory – played by Ben Savage – mistakes her dieting and weight gain for pregnancy, resulting in a comedic turn of events.

Looking back on that time, Fishel said her feelings of self-doubt made those episodes 'hard to watch.'

'I feel some cognitive dissonance because I'm aware that what my eyes are seeing doesn't match up with the way I feel watching,' she said.

'It just doesn’t feel good. The season seven episodes are tainted with the feeling of incredible insecurity and fear of being on camera, which was hard for me to shake and probably why I didn't really want to go forward with a career on camera.'

When asked what she would do if she could travel back in time and face those executives, Fishel answered, 'I wouldn’t say or do [anything] differently other than be more accepting and loving of myself.'

Fishel has gone on to direct episodes of Disney Channel's Wizards Beyond Waverly Place, Raven's Home and Coop & Cami Ask the World, and ABC's Shifting Gears.

She has since learned that many of her Hollywood peers felt the way she did while working in the public eye in the 1990s, 'Especially for the women, the '90s were a rough time, you know?'

'Every time I have a conversation with somebody, it is a weird, comforting feeling to know there isn't something wrong with me,' Fishel said on Pod Meets World, the rewatch podcast she created with co-stars Friedle and Rider Strong in 2022. 'That all of us who grew up around that same time [had] that same experience.'

Fishel explained it's taken 'a lifetime' to get to a healthier frame of mind. 'And even still, the bad habits and the bad thoughts can creep up and I have to rein it back in,' she added.

Competing on Dancing with the Stars in fall of 2025 alongside Pasha Pashkov was a personal milestone for Fishel. It followed a challenging year of breast cancer treatment.

Fishel, who has two sons with producer husband Jensen Karp, has since named new projects in the works, including a new podcast called Teen Beat that launched on January 7.