Ben Savage Abruptly “Ghosted” His Former Costars Mid-Text Conversation In 2020

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Back in 2022, Danielle Fishel, Rider Strong, and Will Friedle — three of the core former cast members of Boy Meets World — launched a hugely popular rewatch podcast called Pod Meets World, and ever since, there has been one major question on everybody’s lips: Where is Ben Savage?

In 2020, Ben apparently abruptly cut Danielle, Rider, and Will from his life, with Danielle telling Variety: “He ghosted us.”

“He disappeared — I wish I knew why, to this day,” Will added. “We didn’t have a fight. There’s no falling out. There was no animosity. He just woke up one day, and decided: I don’t want this person in my life anymore."

When Pod Meets World first launched, the hosts said that they had invited Ben to be a part of it, and respected his decision not to be. But in a 2023 interview with Variety, they admitted that there’s a lot more to the situation than meets the eye as they reflected on the “sore subject” of their relationship with Ben.

In the profile, the trio explained that they began discussing the podcast long before it actually launched, and Ben was always “very adamant that it was not for him.”

Danielle clarified: “The time between those conversations and the time we actually started the podcast was a significant amount of time.”

And while he wasn’t interested in being on the pod, it didn’t seem as though there were any hard feelings between Ben and his former castmates — especially as he supported Danielle when her first son was born early and had to spend time in the NICU back in 2019. She recalled: “We were just so, so close, especially during that time. He was checking in with me regularly.”

But just one year later, in 2020, Ben apparently abruptly cut Danielle, Rider, and Will from his life, with Danielle telling Variety: “He ghosted us.”

“He disappeared — I wish I knew why, to this day,” Will added. “We didn’t have a fight. There’s no falling out. There was no animosity. He just woke up one day, and decided: I don’t want this person in my life anymore."

At the time of the interview, all three stars confirmed that none of them had spoken to Ben for three years — but not for lack of trying. In fact, Will confessed to calling Ben every single day for a month to try and find out what had happened.

He explained: “I finally sent a text saying: ‘I’ve known you for 30 years, what’s going on?' I said: ‘I’m gonna call you every day until you tell me not to call you anymore.’ That lasted about three weeks or a month, every single day."

Detailing why this loss was so painful for him, Will added: “I’ve known him since he was 11 years old, and we have a shared history. And we were doing these conventions together, and we were getting to know each other as adults, and then he just kind of went: ‘I’m done with you.’ I tried and tried and tried for months, until finally, my wife was like: ‘Why are you doing this to yourself? He obviously doesn’t want you in his life.’”

Despite all of this, Danielle suggested that the door is open for Ben should he want to get in touch, sharing: “Speaking for myself, Ben and I may be estranged right now and we may have our complaints about each other, but I will always love Ben and want what’s best for him. I don’t think this is the end of our story — but time will tell.”

And on Monday’s episode of Pod Meets World, Will admitted that he “can’t stand” the fact that Ben is no longer in his life as he seemingly confirmed that nothing has changed in the two years since their Variety interview.

But Will was keen to set the record straight, saying: “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. And that’s what it is: He won’t speak to us.”

“I feel exactly the same,” Danielle agreed.

“I can show you the last three years, literally, of messages, and in the middle of a conversation with Ben, he just bailed on me,” Will went on. “Ben absolutely one day woke up and said: ‘I don’t want Will in my life,’ and never told me why.”