Boy Meets World star Rider Strong says he was 'completely screwed' in sitcom negotiations in candid admission
The Boy Meets World cast are shedding light on their time on the hit 90s sitcom and what went on behind the scenes.
Rider Strong, Will Friedle, and Danielle Fishel have released a book titled 'Book Meets World: The Definitive Inside Story of the Hit Sitcom Boy Meets World'.
The memoir hit shelves on November 10 and expands on Strong, Friedle, and Fishel's popular podcast, Pod Meets World. It's available to purchase on Amazon.
In the book, Strong – who played Shawn Hunter – shared details of how he came to be in season seven of Boy Meets World, despite the fact he was ready leave.
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In 1999, Strong and other members of the cast entered negotiations for the final season. But Strong misread his contract and thought he was already 'locked in' for season seven which lead to a call from the show's creator, Michael Jacobs, who asked him for a meeting.
Strong says in the book, as per Entertainment Weekly: "I was already in college, and I didn’t want to do the show anymore."
While he was hesitant, Jacobs was keen to have his character in the final season and pitched to him 'hard', while also suggesting that he started college a year later instead.
Strong says he responded at the time saying: "I stopped him, and I said, 'You realize, they’re talking about adding an eighth season.' He was like, 'No, we’re not. We’re talking about adding a seventh.'"
It was then that he realized that he'd misread his contract and he hadn't been obligated to take part in season seven after all. Had he known this earlier, Strong (who had just turned 18 when these discussions were happening) said he would have likely walked away from the show sooner.
Apparently Jacobs told him after is revelation: "Okay, so we’re just thinking about adding a year that you already thought was there, so we’re good."
Strong left the meeting 'confused' and, looking back, he thinks he could have escaped the final season of Boy Meets World had he played the meeting better.
With this in mind, he felt like he had nobody looking at for him at the time – particularly as his reps were only paid if he worked.
"I thought, why is nobody looking out for me and just saying, 'Rider, if you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to?' There was no sense of that," he wrote.
Strong added: "I had my own relationship with my manager, my own relationship with my agent, which is why I walked into a meeting with Michael by myself and got completely screwed."
UNILAD have approached Michael Jacobs' rep for comment.
Topics: Nostalgia, Film and TV, Books, Celebrity
Niamh Shackleton
