Maitland Ward is speaking out following her viral fight with former “Boy Meets World” co-star Danielle Fishel.
In an exclusive interview with The Post, Ward, 48, said she believes her heated argument with Fishel, 43, on the “Pod Meets World” podcast was “orchestrated” by Fishel, Will Friedle and Rider Strong.
Furthermore, Ward said she’s especially hurt by Friedle, 48, since he invited her on the show and she considered him her “friend.”
“What’s really hurtful about the situation is, maybe she was mad or whatever, and she wanted to bring it up like that, but Will had presented this show to me before like it was going to be so much fun. We’re going to talk about all times. The fans are going to love it. We finally get into your season,” Ward told The Post.
“They have dragged this out for a long time,” she explained about her appearance on the trio’s “Boy Meets World” rewatch podcast. “Will has always texted me over the years saying, ‘We’re going to get you on soon. We really are excited about it.’ And he has always been a friend to me, I thought.”
Ward, who played Rachel McGuire on the final two seasons of the ABC sitcom, said she had a “closer” relationship with Friedle than Fishel and Strong, 45.
“He was my connection and he’d always check in,” she shared. “We weren’t seeing each other every day, but we were friends.”
“If he knew this was going to happen like this and didn’t give me any warning about it, that really sucks,” Ward added. “And that really is a betrayal, that way from him.”
The “White Chicks” actress admitted she’s rethinking her friendship with Friedle in the wake of the drama.
“I can’t trust that he would ever watch out for me in a situation or have my back,” she said. “If I was told, ‘Listen, Danielle wants to really hash this out ahead of time.’ Because on the show I was not starting anything with her. I was not going to start anything big with her. We were just going to have conversations.”
“I thought as we got into the show, it was weird that she wasn’t bringing anything up even in conversation, like, ‘Hey, let’s talk about this. We might have had some bad times in the in the past, what were your feelings? And what were my feelings? And we can both apologize and talk it out,”‘ Ward explained.
“But then she saved it for the end. I thought the show was winding down at that point. And I think she wanted to catch me off guard. She wanted to try to rattle me and and she did. I didn’t expect it.”
The Post has reached out to Friedle and Fishel’s reps for comment.
Ward also told The Post that she hasn’t spoke to Friedle or his co-hosts since the fight, and called Fishel out for accusing her of wanting to come on the show for attention.
“If she really didn’t want to have a dramatic fight with me, she didn’t have to start it and she didn’t have to invite me on the show. And Will didn’t have to lure me in by saying, ‘Oh, it’s going to be so much fun.’ I thought bygones would be like bygones. We can just laugh about a lot of it and then talk heartfelt about a lot of it.’ And that’s just not the way it was presented,” said Ward.
“So I really believe she definitely planned it before,” Ward said of Fishel. “But again, the hurtful thing would be if Will was a part of that.”
The two actresses got into it on the podcast when Ward accused Fishel of ignoring her on the set of the spinoff series “Girl Meets World” and deleting her on Facebook, all of which Fishel denied.
Friedle was silent during the episode until Ward claimed that they “hate” their former co-star Ben Savage and show creator Michael Jacobs.
In his rebuttal, Friedle said, “Ben is one of the most important people I’ve ever met in my life, and I can’t stand the fact that he won’t speak to us.”
“Ben absolutely one day woke up and said, ‘I don’t want Will in my life,’ and never told me why,” Friedle added.
